Sleepwalker (English Translation)
by KH2083
Summary: Jessica Vale meets strange man in her dreams. She recalls her past before becoming a student of Xavier's school and soon will find the true nature of her mutation. Other stories in this Elseworld: "The Child of Everlasting Twilight"
1. Chapter 1

**Sleepwalker**

World: Marvel/X-Men

Time: After the Reload, before the Decimation

Characters: Paragons team of young mutants, other students and teachers

**Chapter 1: Artificial Sky **

New day was rising above the campus belonging to the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning which was the school for young mutants, the place where they could live, learn and train how to use their abilities safely from the entire world. The sun rays were penetrating through the windows' blinds in one of the rooms of the female dormitory falling down on the young sleeping girl's face. Her red hair were scattered over the soft pillow and only her small feet stuck out from under the duvet. Young mutant girl felt touch of the morning on her whole body, she opened her eyes. After a while she closed them again and covered her head with the duvet, she didn't feel like waking up. In the silence hanging inside the room it was possible to hear quiet creaking of the door and a sound of footsteps right after it. Megan - it was the name of the sleeping girl, felt that somebody had entered her room, but she decided to pretend that she didn't wake up. Young boy with a short, black hair dressed in the green-red uniform with the letter "x" on the belt was her guest. He was holding a walkman in one hand and headphones in the second. He smiled maliciously and uncovered sleeping girl with a fast move putting headphones on her ears. He turned very loud music on. The effect was immediate. Megan opened her eyes in a flash; she sat down on the bed and knocked the "gift" off her head. She stretched her arms and colorful butterfly wings spread on her back. They were one of the special abilities of the girl. Mutant tried to comb the messy hair out with her hands.

"What are you doing? How could you! I could become deaf!" She screamed irritated at the boy.

"I had to wake you up. You would have overslept for the training in the Danger Room; don't you remember that today is our turn?"

Megan calmed down just a little. She spread her wings again like she was trying to do morning exercises. Her cold eyesight showed that she still hadn't forgiven her friend that silly joke.

"And by the way, what are you doing here? It is girls' dormitory! Perhaps we're not pleased that the boy comes here so early in the morning." The girl got up preparing to throw the boy out of the room. He was amused by her behavior. Megan was curious what pleased him this time. After a moment she realized that she was having only shorts and a pink bra on herself. She turned red.

"Go away! Now!"

Mark, whose codename in the team was DJ decided to leave Megan's room.

"Can you both be quiet? You aren't alone, somebody wants to sleep here."

Eyes of the friends turned in the direction of the second bed. Megan's room-mate Andrea – Rubbermaid was woken up by their conversation. Mutant girl with a bright, short hair and blue eyes was irritated.

"Are you not supposed to go to the training session with us? DJ asked.

"Since Mr Baubier... died we all have one instructor."

"Exactly and because of that we cannot have exercises together, you jerk! There isn't enough space in the Danger Room for two teams!" Andrea replied. Mark left the girl's room.

Megan corrected her hair and after a few minutes she went to the corridor. A lot of young mutant girls were wandering around there which was an indication that the school day had begun. The girl went to the bathroom. In the door a friend with purple skin wearing panties and a T-shirt with the inscription "Katmatui" passed by her. When Megan found herself in the showers' dressing room it turned out that her companions from the Paragons team were already there. One of them, Hope - the girl with straight, brown hair and green eyes finished changing into the uniform for training. She was taller than Megan, slender and neat.

"Hello, Hope... you got up early today".

"You overslept again. Everyone is already awake. I can see that the DJ visited you." Hope said with a smile and winked at her. It was probably she who planned the entire thing with waking Megan up. Megan's face became cloudy, the girl spread her wings.

"You knew about it! It was your idea." Hope shook her head.

"No, no, no... I met him on the corridor when I was going to the toilet. It was obvious where he had gone."

"Yes?" Pixie didn't believe her friend.

"Hi, both of you girls..."

Both mutants heard sound of a calm, quiet voice and turned their eyes in the direction of the entrance to the showers. The girl with a pale complexion and raven-black hair was standing there. She was dressed in the black bathrobe and had a few earrings stuck in the ears. Her brown pupils were staring at the girls.

"Hello, Jessie!" Megan welcomed her with a smile. Black-haired girl came up to the bench on which her underwear and uniform for training in the Danger Moon were put down. She looked at her friend.

"You'll be late today..." After hearing these words Megan ran to take a shower.

"She sometimes horrifies me. She's my friend, but I'm afraid of her. These glimmers of the future events which she is having, I'm afraid to ask her about anything, she often knows what I'll be doing in a few hours, even before I think about it."

Girl was standing in the shower cabin thinking about Jessie. Drops of water were flowing on her hair, the body and wings and the entire cabin was filled up with a steam.

Jessica put the Paragons costume on and left the bathroom with Hope.

"Won't we wait for her? Jessica asked Hope.

"She overslept not for the first time; do you remember how we got a reprimand from Emma Frost when all three of us came half an hour late, because Megan overslept?"

Black-haired girl smiled lightly.

"I remember, I predicted every word of Frost then." She said recalling the past event.

"So... we could have listened to you and not turn up at the Institute at all..." Hope enjoyed herself.

"But you know what would have happened? She would have summoned us using one of her telepathic projections. How I hate when she is screaming in my head, how I hate these astral projections... No offence..." said Jessie seeing the eyes of her friend.

The girls busy with the conversation did not realize when they vacated the hall of the residence and reached the main building of Xavier's Institute in which the Danger Room was located. Morning air and the sunny weather affected everyone; good humor was seen in the eyes of people passing through corridors of the building. Mutant girls found themselves in the waiting room at the front of the steel door of the Danger Room. It wasn't a surprise for them when they saw that the male part of their group had already come there and were waiting for the training. Mark, the young mutant which in the morning woke Megan up and his two friends – Nicholas: Wolf Cub - young man covered with hair all over the body with sharpened senses (and teeth) and Ben - whose face was on the fire all the time. He had simple but adequate codename - Match. Mark saw the approaching girls and smiled widely. Hope ran to him.

"Your plan failed. She 'll be late again; she most probably still didn't come out of the shower."

She announced to everyone assembled.

"Next time I'll come to her before the dawn" The boy replied.

"You would have to be a teleporter." Hope said to him.

"Our dorm is closed in the night. It's opened at seven…"

"Do you think that the closed door will be a problem for me?" He fell into a pensive mood.

"And by the way if I was a teleporter..."

"I know well how you would use these abilities." Ben butted in. Nicholas affirmatively nodded his head. Jessie smiled lightly.

"I don't know whether you would have a very good chance. We all can defend ourselves and deal with voyeurs." Shan Coy Mahn commented the conversation. She was the mentor of the Paragons group. She had entered into the room a moment ago and listened to her students for a brief moment. Entry of the young Vietnamese was predicted by Jessie, but the girl knew her group wouldn't fall into trouble, if their teacher eavesdropped on such an innocent chat, so she didn't react.

"I can see that you are ready for your session." Shan announced. Her eyes were looking for somebody missing.

"Where is Pixie?" She asked.

"Megan should appear right away" Jessie quietly informed. And indeed, mutant girl popped into the room breathless half a minute later.

"I apologize for being late, it won't repeat in the future." Megan said to the teacher. Shan opened the door of the Danger Room using the panel and together with her group went inside.

The six of young mutants were waiting impatiently for tasks which their mentor was going to give them. They were inside a huge room, which was almost completely empty apart from the metal of the floor, walls and the ceiling and a small control panel attached near the door which had the privilege to be the only element of the decor. Shan put her hand on it and tapped something using the keyboard and then said some numerical access code. At that very moment the room started changing. A hologram of the huge, starry sky with the beautiful Moon appeared on the ceiling slowly, walls were transformed into images of distant mountains covered with forests, the floor became ground with virtual grass and the empty space started filling up with image of stone ruins hidden in a thick, dark forest. Metallic silence was replaced by sounds of animals lurking in the darkness and coolness of the air-conditioning by stinking, humid air of the sultry night. Everyone from the group admired new scenery.

"Not only the night, also such a damp and staleness." complained Hope.

"Forest, ruins, many hiding places, so many smells. Finally something for me." Nicholas was glad. Mark came up to Megan. The girl looked all around with an anxiety. She covered herself with her wings.

"You don't like darkness, right?" The boy asked touching her shoulder.

"No, it gives me the creeps.

Ben came up to everyone.

"I'll do something with this darkness. Don't worry." He blinked at friends. After a moment the flame on his head died down lightly, and his entire face brightened up with a faint glitter. Forest in the closest neighborhood of the team became brighter and because of that friendlier for people and particularly for Megan.

"Thanks Ben, a ginger girl replied. Her face expressed immense relief. She spread her wings out and turned away from Mark coming closer to Jessie and Hope.

"Listen carefully. You must cooperate with yourselves and reach to the stone building standing on the hill. You must get inside and find some object".

"What kind of object?" Megan asked.

"You'll learn when you go inside…" Shan replied her.

"You'd better start moving." She added after a moment. Wolf Cub smiled. He got to the big rock covered with a moss with a few jumps. He raised the hand toward the large face of the moon.

"Nothing is simpler. I'll bring this stone alone." He jumped on the branch of a big tree and then on the rock looking like made by the human hand for some kind of ritual.

"You dope! We're supposed to act as a group." Match shouted at him.

"Oh..." Jessica moaned quietly and sat down on the rotten trunk saying nothing.

"What happened, Jessie? Did you have the flash of the future events? What could you see? Hope tried to learn something from her.

"We'll screw this exercise up entirely." The girl replied. Nicholas sitting on the obelisk looked gladly at Ben.

"Why the hell we must act as a team? Forest is a paradise for me." Something started buzzing strangely. Savages dressed in skins of animals emerged from behind nearby trees. In reality they were robots looking like wild people. One of them came up to Wolf Cub and hit his back with a mace. The boy fell from the stone on the ground beside Ben's legs. Opponents followed him. The DJ assumed a defensive position. Pixie gripped his hand and then she covered herself with wings again. Trance put her hand on Preview's shoulder.

"Jessie, we must do something! Boys are in danger!"

"I said we would screw this exercise up." Black-haired girl replied with an anger present in her voice. Ben prepared two flames in his hands.

"Jessie! Come here! You must predict their attacks! Together we'll win!"

"We won't win! I already said... "

"If not you feel like moving your ass, we'll cope without you!" After these words Match launched two columns of the fire from his fists using which he burnt assailants attacking him. Mark turned on some hard rhythms in his Discman and using the ability to convert sound waves into other kind of the energy he destroyed a few next enemies. Megan cringed trying to avoid any fight. Hope looked at her friends not knowing how to behave. Her abilities to leave the body in the astral form were not helpful in the case of physical fight. She looked at Jessie with sadness in her eyes. Her friend seemed absent, not interested in what was happening around her. Hope sat down close to her.

"It'll end now". Preview whispered quietly. Robots stopped and slowly started withdrawing deep into the illusory forest.

"I'm stopping the exercise. You screwed it up completely; I'm angry and very disappointed with you." Shan voice sounded from loudspeakers hidden in the virtual clump.

"Does it mean that the exercise is over?" Megan asked.

"No, you must stay in the room with unchanged scenery... Only Match must report to me immediately". The door of the room in which Shan waited opened with a creaking sound. It looked strange, there was a hologram in the room and the door opened in the middle of the wall of the forest. Ben without hesitation headed in its direction.

Wolf Cub shook off dust and sand. He ran up to Jessie and directed his finger with a claw at her face.

"It's your fault! If you had warned me in time the fight would not have started and the exercise would have been finished." The girl pushed his hand away. She got up from the stump.

"My fault? Was I jumping like an idiot on the stones?"

"You knew what would happen when I was on this stone and yet you didn't say a word!"

"You didn't listen to Ben! I'm supposed to think that you would have listened to me!"

"It doesn't change the fact that you are standing apart from all of us all the time! What are you doing in our team" You are completely useless to us!" After his last sentence Jessie became sad. Hope cut the conversation.

"Leave her alone! You know well that what happened is your own fault because you first stopped listening to Ben! And who isn't suitable for a team?"

"You're defending her?" Nicholas was very irritated.

"Wolf Cub... stop this. Leave them alone." Mark tried to calm the friend also. Wolf boy looked at him with a great anger in his eyes.

"Ok. Do what you want." He ran next to DJ and Megan quickly, and then jumped in the virtual forest. "Nicholas…"

"Why cannot we all be friends? Why it is so difficult?" Pixie said with a sadness in her voice. Hope grasped Jessica's hand. She smiled to her.

"Come on Jessie; let us take a walk somewhere together." Both girls slowly walked away a few meters, where they disappeared behind the obelisk crushed by the time.

Megan wanted to run after them. She wanted to talk with Jessie. Mark grasped her shoulder not letting her to move.

"Why...?" She asked.

"Hope knows her better. She will know how to reach to her and help her".

Ben was sitting on the sofa in a little room lightened only by the brilliance of his body and the flame surrounding his head. Shan was standing opposite to him. She was looking straight at his eyes. The clock hanging on the wall was ticking annoyingly.

"Today you disappointed me as a team's leader, Ben."

"Did I disappoint you, really? I tried my best, but with such people in the team... they dissatisfied me first." Match didn't let her complete her sentence. Karma sat down by him.

"You were chosen as the leader of the team because of your abilities to influence people, to lead them. Rahne after spending some time with you reached to a conclusion that you were suitable for this role. She said a lot of times to me that she hadn't regretted her choice. After what I could see today, somehow it is hard for me to believe in her words! You had no contact with the team!"

"Contact with them? Shan, did you observe the entire fight? Wolf Cub behaved like a complete idiot and it's a waste of time to talk about girls from our group. Megan didn't move a finger out of a fear and Jessie from the beginning didn't give a shit about us and the entire exercise. How is it possible to command somebody who isn't fit to work in the team?"

Shan became irritated with the response of the boy.

"Really do you think this way? They aren't suitable for being in the group? In that case Rahne made a terrible mistake giving you the leader position." The girl got up. She pointed her finger at the mutant.

"If you frankly think this way, it's you alone who aren't suitable for commanding the group." Ben was silent. The girl continued.

"When I and the other original New Mutants came to Xavier's school we were a mixture of completely different characters. At the beginning there was a lot of quarrel, we could not trust each other. But years later, after spending a lot of time with each other beneath one roof we became good friends. And don't think that it was easy. It could not be, if your friend from the group was a witch who spent the half of her life brought up by demons, and other one was alien being composed of living circuits from other galaxy. But we managed. Thanks to the fact that Dani and Sam were able to bring us closer to each other and we helped them having a desire to become a family. Don't excuse yourself with the fact that somebody isn't listening to your orders. Talk to them, be with them all the time and get to know them so that you know how to reach each of them. If you know how each of them will behave in every situation, commanding the group will be no problem for you."

Match didn't say a word. At last he raised from the couch and came up to the door leading to the virtual ruins bathed in the night, the glitter of the stars and the jungle.

"I'll try to talk with them and repeat the exercise." He turned around, but she stopped him for a moment.

"Give Jessica a chance, I ask you. She went through a lot in her life but she is a good girl." Shan smiled. The boy didn't answer her and disappeared behind the door.

Hope leaned against obelisk covered with a humid moss. Jessie squatted by her, she embraced her legs with hands and put her head on the knees. Girls spent time in the silence surrounded by hooting and squawks of animals difficult to identify. Hope took a piece of the moss from the obelisk and gripped it firmly in the fist. She showed her friend the remains of the plant.

"It's amazing, right? How real is the illusion created by the Danger Room technology? How it is cheating our senses. We're here several times during the week and I still cannot distinguish these virtual projections from reality". She squatted beside black-haired girl.

"A vastness of the space is enslaving me; mixed smells are coming into my nose. I can hear sounds of animals, the noise of the waterfall flowing somewhere. I feel the moistness of the air, the heat and the stuffiness of the jungle on my face. I'm feeling it everything as if I was somewhere on the equator rather than in the metal, air-conditioned room. It's so amazing and at the same time horrifying, because I don't know where the truth begins and an illusion ends." Hope turned in the direction of Jessie. She observed her, because she knew that her friend had been in the nasty mood after the quarrel with Wolf Cub. Jessica got up, stretched her arms, and then she walked away from the rock a few meters.

"Stars..." she said looking at the illusory sky. Trance came up to her quickly. She also raised the eyes up.

"Stars and the Moon." Jessie continued.

"The night sky lets us find the border between the truth and the illusion. Although it seems to spread away up to infinity here, to last from time immemorial, in reality it isn't. Were you on the highway somewhere in the West at night, far away from the lights of large cities?" Hope shook her head.

"In such a place it is possible to see the real night sky, real stars and the real Moon. Standing in the middle of the wilderness under the night sky you have a feeling being a unity with the entire universe. The sky here is artificial and flat, just as flat as under the sky over the large city."

"We'll go on a trip into wildernesses. Ok Jessie?" Black-haired girl was silent. Hope bit her tongue, because she realized that she had associated the question with Jessica's abilities to experience flashes from the future. And she knew that it was topic difficult for her. She changed the thread of the conversation.

"Oh well, maybe the sky here isn't natural and everything is artificial, but it can easily cheat our bodies. I'm poured with a sweat because of this heat." Girls laughed. Trance began other topic.

"Listen Jessie, you're very powerful. Your help really would be useful during the exercises of the team. If you informed us each time of what is supposed to take place we would win every scenario..." Raven-haired girl lowered her eyes.

"The conversation had to go with this way, right?"

Hope became nervous. Jessica's brown eyes were penetrating her soul, creating fear and the uncertainty of what will happen in the next moment. This way Preview looked at the others when she was dissatisfied with something.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to irritate you. But I really think you are standing aside from all events unnecessarily. After all you could shape the future on the basis of its fragments which are reaching you. Because you distanced yourself from everything, everybody gained prejudice to you, and..." Jessie cut her off in mid-sentence.

"My power isn't working this way! I cannot influence the future; I can only see images of it..." She corrected her hair. Hope thought that her face looked beautiful soaked in the moonlight, even the artificial one.

"How can you know if you didn't try...?" Trance asked sadly.

"And how do you know that I didn't try?" After last Jessica's sentence Hope was terrified. She could not reply her.

"But I don't want to talk about it. Let us walk away because Match will appear." Black-haired went in the direction of the rest of her companions. Hope after a short moment ran after her quickly.

Megan sat down on big, flat stone sticking out in tall grass. Darkness hanging around and ruins sticking above trees caused that the girl was feeling uncomfortable. She didn't like darkness or strange desolated places in which danger lurked. Even the awareness that the entire scenery was an illusion didn't comfort her. Mark was standing closely to her listening to the music coming from headphones of his walkman. He noticed that his friend wasn't feeling good. He sat down by her and put one of headphones in her ear.

He turned some calm instrumental music on and then concentrated in order to use the abilities to convert the music into other forms of an energy. A golden halo appeared around his hand and Megan's body. It lightened up the darkness in the nearest neighborhood and soothed the girl's feeling.

"I'm sorry for what happened in the morning." He said. Hearing the words of the boy, Pixie took the earpiece out of her ear.

"I'm not angry. Thanks to you I woke up on time, didn't I? It's I who should thank you. But you shouldn't walk into the girls dorm at the night, not all of the girls are as understanding as I... you'll cause yourself trouble..."

"Hmm..." DJ replied listening to the music from his walkman. Megan got angry. She took the device away from him and turned it off.

"Listen to me when I'm talking to you!"

"I like your behavior now!" Boy stroke the hair of the mutant girl.

"Soft..."

"Don't do it. I'm nervous. I can unwittingly produce dust which triggers hallucinations..." Mark seemed not to be upset by what the girl wanted to announce.

"I can take the risk." Megan turned away from him.

"Let us look for Wolf Cub or Jessie and Hope..." She proposed. The DJ touched the cheek of the girl.

"If they came here, they would make an unnecessary crowd. It's so beautiful here, right?" The girl was very uneasy. She was looking at the starry sky. The moonlight was mirrored in her big eyes. Mark moved closer to her. He touched her fragile shoulder and slowly moved his face close to her. Mutant girl closed her eyes. She knew that the boy wanted to kiss her, but she could not or didn't want to stop him. Sound of the opening door shook the surroundings. Pixie and the DJ moved away from each other immediately. Match turned up in the holographic jungle.

"Mark, Megan... Where is the rest of the team? We must immediately discuss the plan of correcting this exercise."

"Jessie and Nicholas quarreled and then they went somewhere." DJ enquired.

"We're here!" Preview firm voice caused that everyone looked around.

"Always ready!" Added Hope and holding the hand on Jessica's shoulder she winked at Ben.

"Everyone is here except... where is Wolf Cub?" Match asked.

"When I'm trying to think about him, I see nothing. Only the temporal noise like Dr McCoy once said." Jessie announced.

"What is it determining?"

"It means that if we do nothing Wolf Cub will not appear soon." Ben became nervous.

"Bad. It 's necessary to get him here."

"I can look for him. I should spot him from above." Megan wanted to help very much.

"No. The risk of the physical attack is too great. Something can shoot you down." After these words Ben turned to Hope.

"Your astral projection is a solution. Try to look for him, ok?"

"I'll give my all!" Hope shouted pleased.

The girl closed her eyes and concentrated. After a moment her body surrounded itself by the white glow and transparent women's silhouette appeared. It was an astral projection, spirit containing Hope's awareness, but not limited by her bodily coating. Specter of the mutant girl raised high above the trees. Hope could see surroundings with eyes of her projection but thanks to the fact that it was immaterial, she could search the area with the speed of the thought. She looked at nearby forest and obelisks standing inside it. She moved along two traps, remembering that she had to tell the team about them. In the end she spotted the hairy figure of Nicholas. The boy was sitting hunched on the peak of the huge, stone head grinning in the blackness of the forest clearing. Hope's ghost appeared before him. The girl was able to telepathically communicate with persons in the vicinity of where that ghost was standing.

"Hi! End of hiding. We're coming back to the work."

Wolf Cub at the beginning was disorientated with the voice in his head, but quickly guessed who wanted to talk to him.

"You finished taking care of the witch?"

"I don't care whether you'll be reconciled with Jessica or not, but Match gathers the entire team, so you must appear there also. I don't think that you want fail the exercises one more time?" Nicholas answered after short thought.

"OK. But don't even try to bring me closer to this gloomy slut." Hope came back to her body a bit dissatisfied with the conversation. She opened her eyes and after a few seconds of waking up after the trance, she informed Match about the meeting with Wolf Cub.

"He should appear here right away".

Nicholas joined team after short time. He turned away his head ostentatiously seeing Jessica standing nearby. Ben ordered everyone to go up closer with a move of the hand.

"Listen, we still have one chance. We can start our exercise anew. Do you remember what we were supposed to do last time?"

"Yeah." Said Mark.

"Ben, during looking for Wolf Cub I noticed places looking suspicious. I'm almost sure that they contained traps." Hope butted in. She continued.

"It looks like they are somehow connected with statues."

"Excellent, Trance. Now we know that we must keep away from these grinning heads." Match started giving orders.

"DJ, turn on some hard music. It looks like that we're going to be heavy artillery if trouble appears. Hope, you're going along with us. You'll show us how these traps look. Preview, be close to us, if you have some vision remember that you're supposed to tell us about it."

"You know that my..." Black-haired girl replied with irritated voice.

"Jessica, do what I'm saying, please..." Ben smiled to her.

The girl gave him the look speaking distinctly that this time she will grant his request and she will try to give her all.

"Wolf Cub and Pixie, observe the area and our back." "

"Of course" It wasn't necessary to repeat twice to Megan; Nicholas didn't share her enthusiasm.

Trio of mutants disappeared in thickets; Preview and Megan with Wolf Cub followed into their tracks. They found themselves on a wide path. Forest surrounded them from both sides, as well as from above and because of that the path was bathed in total darkness. Megan felt uncomfortable again as the sounds of animals terrified her. She looked at DJ, his smile caused that she picked the greater self-confidence up.

"It's only an illusion, don't be afraid"

Stone head statues of different shapes and sizes with a bizarre and disturbing facial expressions protruded among the trees. They were covered by mushrooms and creepers and were the only silent witnesses of the young people's group expedition. Hope stopped Match and DJ by the gesture of the hand.

"Do you see these jewels which are attached to some of the heads? They don't fit completely, don't you think?" Small pebbles put on foreheads of statues were almost unnoticeable in the darkness ruling around. Because of that Ben looked at his friend in a surprise.

"When I travel in the astral form I notice world differently. I perceive objects more as symbols, as what they are representing. All here is one big theatre scene representing obstacles created for us by the computer, also the statues. Therefore I see pebbles as..."

"Traps..." Mark guessed.

"Precisely! If we cross the invisible ray joining pebbles on the opposite sides of the road, most probably some unpleasant company will turn up."

"Yeah what are we waiting for...? It looks like that destroying them will be inevitable." After these words Ben and DJ prepared to dispose of all the traps. Match melted jewels with streams of the fire avoiding hitting the trees and DJ listening to the loud rock music, smashed them with crashes of the destructive energy. Self-satisfied and sure about the victory they ran up to the last sculpture. This time it was standing on the very middle of the road, it was carved as bearded man with two colorful pebbles green and red sitting down in its eyes. The DJ pointed his hand at it. The same did Match.

"One... - Two... Both shouted out looking at themselves. At that very moment Jessica had the vision.

* Stream of the fire and wave of the energy hit the stone guardian simultaneously. Its eyes lightened in the darkness and then ball of the fire and destructive sound wave emerged from its mouth. The huge explosion threw Ben, Mark and Hope into the mud. Jessie pushed by the column of an air hit Megan and Nicholas. *

Jessica weakened and dark spots appeared before her eyes. She was thirsty, she could not swallow. She closed her eyes.

"Ben! Mark! Don't do it!" She shouted. Mutants dispersed prepared energies and looked at each other. They gazed at the black-haired girl. Jessica's heart was beating quickly and her breath became irregular. She expected the vision to come true and prepared for the crash of the sound wave.

"What...?" She whispered. Hope looked at her and then at the sculpture. She guessed what had frightened her friend. She picked the big stick up from sand and hit the "bearded man" firmly in the face. She smashed jewels from his eyes. Devices familiar to the young mutants appeared in the orbits of stone heads. "Mirrors" were able to deflect the blow of energy of every kind.

"Did you see the future in which they were used against us?" Hope announced gladly pointing at empty eye sockets of the sculpture. She approached her friend.

"Thanks to the fact that you decided to act, your revelation didn't come out true. I'm proud of you, you finally believed in yourself."

Jessica smiled. She was still disorientated by what had happened. Hope cuddled up to her tightly.

"Good work..." She whispered into her ear. Preview fell into a pensive mood and her face turned sad. Neither Hope nor other members of the team noticed it through the darkness which ruled around. Ben became impatient with a sudden stop.

"Finish it. We have the task to do."

Companions forced their way through the thicket to the other end of the forest. A vast wood clearing covered with tall grass appeared before their eyes. Monumental pyramid, built from the yellow stone was the central point of this place. The stone temple was located on its roof. The huge Moon and thousands of stars reigned on the sky, which was clearly visible from the clearing. Everyone noticed that the air in this place was humid and it stank of the mustiness. The croak of frogs was heard around. Ben thought that there was a lake somewhere nearby.

"We're going in." He announced to the team and took a step forward. Wolf Cub came up to him. Nicholas was in a bad mood all the day particularly from the moment when Jessica rescued everyone. He wanted to show the team that he could also do something useful. Now he had the chance. He stretched his hairy arms, drew air into the nose. He eyed Match up and down.

"Ben, don't go farther or else our journey will end."

"Huh?" Ben and Mark said after the statement of their friend.

"Don't you understand it? Do you feel the damp? Can you hear frogs? Do you think that there is a lake somewhere here? You're wrong; this entire forest clearing is a great lake or rather the swamp. Its smell says me everything about it. Too thick to swim in it, but can't be crossed on feet also. One move and game is finished."

The boy was proud of himself and waited for Ben's response.

"Hmm..." Match fell into a pensive mood. Mark patted him on the shoulder.

"I believe in Nicholas' senses". Ben sighed.

"And we must get inside. Nice." He looked at the girls.

"It's necessary to get there by the air. Trance! Sorry, but we must count on your help again."

Mutant girl shrugged her shoulders.

"Ehm!" Megan stared at the boy.

"Trance isn't the only one who is able to fly!" She said through clenched teeth. Ben shook his head.

"I already said that the risk of the physical attack is too big. I disagree." The girl with wings of a butterfly lowered her head. Mark rested his hands on her shoulder.

"It seems to me that our fearless leader forgot about the objective of the mission. We're supposed to take something out from the inside of this pyramid, right? And Hope's astral projection cannot pick up anything. We won't make it without Megan's help, only she can finish this exercise." Pixie looked at the pyramid with fear in the eyes. When she realized that she had to go the building alone while her friends would remain far away, separated from her by the barrier of the bog, she regretted that she had suggested her help. The DJ unfastened the walkman from his belt; then he put the headphones on Megan's head and attached the device to her uniform.

"Remember, when you'll feel uncertain, turn on the music which we listened earlier. It'll work."

He stroked her head. Hope decided to help her also.

"I'll come with you there as the "ghost". You won't be alone." Megan spread her colorful wings; she rose up into the air and headed toward the stone building. The Trance apparition kept her company during the entire travel. Her eyes revealed that stairs had held a lot of traps in themselves. If the team somehow sailed across the swamp, they would have poor chances of getting to the inside of the temple.

"Stand on that stone! Pay attention to the wall on the left." Hope warned her companion. Megan settled on the ceiling of the building gently like tafeather pushed by a slight wind. Her eyes turned in the direction of the gate to the temple. Emptiness panted from it, blackness which she disliked so much.

"Yes!" She didn't think long. She entered the interior of the pyramid. Hope tried to go after her, but some invisible barrier pushed her away. The girl quickly came back to her body. She goggled and inhaled the air.

"What happened?" Mark asked.

"Oh well, it looks like Megan will have to deal with it alone." She turned her head in the direction of Jessica. She could see that the girl was thinking about something.

"Can you see a vision? Will we manage?" She wanted to help her come back from the maze of thoughts. Jessica was silent for a moment, and then she announced:

"Nothing will happen which could sadden us." She smiled. Megan having crossed the threshold of the pyramid realized that the Hope's astral projection disappeared somewhere.

"Hope! Hope? Are you here? Hope?"

Only silence answered her. Heart of the young mutant girl started beating more quickly. Her breath became uneven. She looked at the forward direction. Stairs leading into the interior of the temple were flooded with portentous darkness Drops of dirty water was dripping from the ceiling. The girl covered herself with wings. She didn't manage to do the next step.

"I can't do it... I cannot enter this darkness. I won't overcome my feelings..." She was standing motionless for a few minutes. Finally she touched the damp wall with the hand and started the slow walk into the bottom of the stairs. Sounds from the outside distorted by walls of the building filled the dark corridor. Shouts of animals and the sound of the wind seemed to pursue the pyramid from deep inside, they were inhuman, kind of from other world. Megan stood up again. She turned around and looked at the entry to the temple from which the moonlight emerged with a fear.

"I'll come back. We'll lose this exercise, so what? I won't withstand longer in this horrible place." In the same moment she remembered deep eyes of DJ and his words that the peace of mind can help her. She turned the discman on. She listened to some slow, calming song and felt more confident. She closed her eyes imagining that she is in the other, nice and bright place. She followed the stairs into the stone temple.

"Thank you Mark." She thought and the smile appeared on her face again. Discman started playing the other, more energetic melody. The Pixie's steps became faster. After a dozen seconds the girl stepped into something soft. She immediately stopped . Fear appeared again. She squatted and touched her shoe with the finger. There was a disgusting, black cylindrical worm with the mouth from which sticky spit was dipping. Mutant girl jumped away a few steps. It turned out that there were far more worms inside the temple. The entire floor was swarming with them. The light beating from the chamber close by assured the girl that worms were a sole obstacle to finish the exercise. Looking at them Megan felt the disgust, she thought that she would vomit. However she knew that she could not stop then. She closed her eyes, and quickly ran into the lighted room, paying attention to worms crawling on the floor. She finally opened her eyes and was stunned.

"Beautiful..." She whispered looking at the jewel lying on the stone plinth. It had the shape of a star and was glowing with faint glitter of the pink color. The girl picked it up cautiously. It seemed even more beautiful to her. She looked at its perfectly cut surface as hypnotized. At that very moment she picked the huge self-confidence up. She felt that nothing would stand on her way to finish the exercise. Holding the jewel she started the walk towards the exit. Worms covering the corridor disappeared like dissolving from the glitter of the jewel. The corridor wasn't terrible and unpleasant anymore; Megan thought that she knew it forever. Mutant girl ran out to the roof of the pyramid, she spread her wings and glided towards the other lakeside. She descended near her colleagues.

"I managed! I managed to enter there! Look! She showed the crystal glass star kept in the hand. Paragons quickly gathered around her.

"Good work." said Match

"Beautiful..." Jessica stated.

"You think?" Hope added looking at the jewel through her shoulders. Megan came up to the DJ. She opened his hand and put the gleaming stone into it.

"Thank you, Mark. I only made a success because of you."

"End of exercises." The Shan voice finished the conversation of the team. The holographic projection of the jungle slowly disappeared into the nothingness leaving only sterile, metal Danger Room's walls. The entrance door opened.

"You can go to refresh yourselves. You're free for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we'll talk about your today's performance." Shan informed her team.

"Trance, I must talk with you. Come into my room." Hope was surprised. She didn't know why she had been chosen from the entire group.

She went into Shan's room with hesitant steps. The woman greeted her with a smile and she ordered her to sit down on the chair standing near her desk. The girl looked at her with interest.

"You were great in the exercise today. But I didn't call you here in order to talk about you. I want to talk about Jessica..." Hope interrupted her.

"Jessie was great also today! She finally overcame her passivity and thanks to that she rescued us from a few bruises." Shan grew more serious.

"That's the problem. Jessie isn't in the best mental state and today's event can cause the return of the sense of the guilt for the event which she survived in the past."

Hope remained silent.

"You're her closest friend in the school. I ask you to be with her and keep an eye on her all the time..."

"I'm always with her; she can always count on me..." Hope didn't understand what her mentor had meant. Suddenly she heard the telepathic voice in the head.

"Jessica Vale, briefly before she found her way to this school..." Girl turned around her head. The woman with a white cape was standing in the corner of the room. She had long blonde hair and strong make-up.

"Miss Frost?" Mutant girl was surprised. Frost continued.

"Before Jessica found her way to our school, she attempted to commit suicide."

Hope Eyes widened with anxiety and surprise.

Hope came back to her room not wanting to have a fun after what she had heard from the mouth of her teacher. Frost's words about the fact that Jessica attempted suicide in the past sounded in her head all the time. The room was immersed in semi-darkness because somebody had tightly slid shutters over the windows. The girl came up to the desk, sat down on the chair and looked at the bed on which her friend was resting. Jessica had changed into black jeans and T-shirt, she was laying on her back looking at the ceiling and intensively thinking about something.

"Jessica... don't you want to take a walk somewhere with me?" Trance asked.

"No". Black-haired girl replied quietly.

"Are you sure?" Hope insisted. She wanted to talk with her friend.

"No. Leave me alone Hope. Please. I have a headache and I want to rest." Jessica turned to the wall. Trance knew that in that moment she wasn't able to establish contact with her.

"Ok. If you wish rest I'm not going to disturb you. We'll see ourselves in the evening, bye." She announced and left the room. Jessica didn't answer her. In her eyes tears appeared.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Freaks**

In the next day Paragons group didn't have exercises in the Danger Room, moreover it was Saturday and because of that they have a day free from normal class activity. Hope woke up late because holidays were the only days in which the girl let herself oversleep. She rubbed her eyes and stretched arms. She noticed that Jessica was sitting by her desk gazing at some small photograph with a sad face. She was wearing black shirt and pajama shorts. Her let down hair reached below her neck.

"She has such a pretty hair." Hope thought. In the same moment she noticed tears in the eyes of her friend. She remembered words of Emma Frost and Shan from the day before. "She attempted suicide..." "Please be close to her and keep an eye on her all the time." Trance decided that she is going to have a fun with her friend and force her to smile.

"Morning Jessie." She tried to start conversation. Preview didn't realized that her friend was awake. She was confused and quickly put the small photograph inside the drawer.

"Hello, I thought that you were still sleeping..." Jessica replied with a fake smile.

"I can't spend the entire day in the bed." Trance got up and came up to the desk. She had the white T-shirt and white pants on herself.

"Are you all right, Jessie? Why are you so sad ?" She asked looking at the face of the friend. "I'm not... I was just thinking..." Black-haired girl replied. Hope was remembering Emma Frost's words and shocking news about Jessica.

"I'm going to take a shower, are you going with me?" Preview asked.

"Of course!" Hope answered without a second thought. Girls went to bathroom.

Jessica and Hope were washing themselves in cabins being adjacent to each other. Some slim blonde was also showering in the same bathroom. Warm water had a positive effect on both girls bringing them better mood. Jessie forgot about matters which bothered her in the morning and felt refreshed. Hot water washed away unpleasant feeling associated with the conversation with Frost from the day before from Hope also. Girls were talking with each other.

"Jessie, we have a free time today, do you have some specific place where you would like to go?"

"Actually I didn't think of leaving anywhere at all. I thought I would read something or listen to the music..."

"Jessica, come one… you spend entire evenings reading books and you have earplugs in your ears on every break. You should do something more interesting to celebrate the fact that you managed to change the future!"

Jessica didn't say a word. She turned the shower's tap off. Tiny streams of water flowed down on her body, they dribbled from her hair. Hope also finished taking a bath. She understood the stupidly of her words, she got scared a bit. She brought her friend's taboo topic up again and didn't have a clue how she would react. Preview looked at her and smiled lightly.

"Okay. We'll take a walk somewhere today".

"Great!" Trance replied. Then a silence fell again. Hope was examining Jessica's body with her eyes. In the meantime the blonde girl wrapped up with a towel and left the bathroom.

"Jess... you have such a pretty body... as if it was carved perfectly". Hope turned red. Raven haired girl was embarrassed.

"Don't do this Hope. Please. I don't like when somebody is watching me naked, even if it's my friend". Second mutant girl turned around.

"Sorry... I'm simply ashamed of my body when I'm by your side …"

"You don't have to." Jessica replied putting her hands on friend's shoulder.

After leaving the showers girls were getting dressed in the changing room. Jessica finished putting her boots on. She was wearing black jeans and black shirt. She hung a few small necklaces with strange symbols on the neck: Egyptian ankh and Horus' eye symbols made of some black metal alloy. Hope came up to her. She was dressed more "lightly" than her friend, she was wearing shorts and green shirt with the letter "X" .

"Jessie? Are you sure that you want to dress this way? It would be better if you brightened up a bit? You know, it certainly has an impact on how you are seen by the others..."

"Not. It's good as it's now. I'm feeling secure and safer". Black-haired girl whispered opening the door. Trance was silent by a moment. She fell into a pensive mood.

"Are you going or not? We're supposed to meet with Megan". Jessica told her to hurry up rescuing her form the labyrinth of thoughts.

"Yes... I'm going, I'm going". Hope replied her thinking about Frost's words all the time.

Friends went to the garden located a few steps of walk behind main dormitories. The famous maze made out of the hedge, known for all students of the institute, was standing there. Megan was sitting on one of white benches which were arranged along its green "walls". She had spread wings and pleasant wind was shaking her hair. She was dressed similarly to Hope, with brown shorts and green sleeveless shirt with the sign "X".

"Hi girls." Winged mutant girl got up in order to say hello.

"We're going somewhere... I don't know, perhaps we'll stop by some shop or cinema... do you want to take a walk with us?" Hope asked.

"Yes! Perhaps we should take boys and go with the entire group to the funfair?" Megan proposed.

"Good idea". Hope replied her.

"We can't. I had a vision a moment ago." Preview announced.

"Ben and Nicholas are going to the sports ground. I could see in the vision how they played match with boys from Alpha Squadron and Corsairs". Megan became sad and looked at her black haired friend with gloomy eyes.

"And Mark?" She asked hesitantly.

"I couldn't see him". Jessica announced.

"So maybe he'll go with us! I'm going to look for him". The girl smiled and went in the direction of the main building of Xavier's institute. Hope put both arms on the armrest of the bench and stretched her back. Her friend was silent. Trance noticed that she was thinking about something again.

"Jessie?" She asked.

"I'm sorry... I simply listened to the singing of cicadas in the garden. They're terribly noisy at this time of year, don't you think?"

"Indeed," Trance sighed loudly.

"Such a heat... How can you withstand in bovver boots and all these blackness?" She asked trying to joke. Jessica laughed.

"It's excellent for coming weather".

"What do you mean?" Hope tried to understand.

"It'll get cold and then there will be a downpour". The girl announced. Hope sighed again.

Travelling across corridors of the school in quest for Mark, Megan came into the art room. Kevin Ford was working on the new sculpture of metal looking like 40 years old machine element. Crankshaft connected with pistons put in such places and under such angles could be only a nightmare of the drunk mechanic. It was sticking out of the body of some planetary transmission gear forgotten a long time ago. The boy was looking at his work with great attention not even noticing entering winged mutant girl. Other mechanical monstrosities which Kevin adopted from the nearby scrap yard were looking at Megan from a desk. The girl went farther. She noticed Marek leaving some room.

"Hi, Mark!" She said hello to him.

"Hello." The boy replied her.

"Listen, we're all going to the funfair, would you like to join us?" The DJ fell into a pensive mood.

"I'm sorry, I cannot today. I'm having something arranged with Jay and rest of the band. I really can't". Pixie became sad.

"Ah, I hoped that we…"

"Hi! Mark, we're starting right away!" Jay Guthrie screamed from the end of the corridor. He kept the guitar. He was distinguished in the crowd by red wings.

"I'm coming!" DJ cried out.

He rested his hand on the Pixie's head.

"Don't be sad. Some other time I'll take you there alone, without girls". He winked at her and came off in the direction of his colleague. Megan came back to the garden. She thought that it would be bad if her friends saw her downcast. She forced herself to smile.

"He won't come". She announced.

"We must go alone". Then she added.

Girls wandered around the town, but in the end they went to some supermarket. The idea of going to the funfair fell through because of Megan's bad mood after the conversation with Mark. They were walking along crowded corridor where exhibitions of shops attracting customers with flamboyant colors and the music playing too loudly were placed.

"Times are changing..." Hope announced looking around.

"People don't stare at us. In the crowd I noticed at least six mutants with unusual appearance". Girls looked at the man with horns passing by her.

"Normals no longer escape from us and they don't open their kissers from amazement. Establishing Mutant Town in New York probably did us something good."

"But many of them are looking at us in disgust and dislike." Jessica interjected.

"Too many!" Megan shouted looking at the boy who creaked out his eyes seeing her wings.

"And many of them would butcher us with pleasure". black haired girl added.

"Don't talk like this, Jessie". Hope finished Jessica's sentence.

"But that's the truth, unfortunately..."

Jessica stopped by a department with medallions of different kind, many of them had ornamental stones. She took black small pendant with the pentagram. She gazed at black pebbles. The woman sitting by the shop cheered up seeing the interest of black-haired girl in her goods. She put off the novelette which she read with the intention of speaking to the customer.

"Leave it alone..." Trance pulled Jessica's hand.

"Too dark!" She added. Megan noticed a bookshop. All three girls quickly found their way there. Hope examined new collection of literature. She has always liked books and parents had persuaded her to read from the youngest years. Megan quickly joined her. Jessica was not interested in looking at books because she felt weak and a bit dizzy. She swept her hair aside and sat down on the shelf for readers sticking out of the wall. She thought that she would feel better and her sudden illness was connected with crowd and noise in the place she hated. The hubbub of the shop and the conversation of her two friends was reaching her ears as through some thick curtain. She started feeling hot sensation on face and neck. She noticed that at the doorway to the bookshop some tall boy was standing. He was looking at her.

"Jessie, Jessie... what are you thinking about again?" She heard Hope's words.

"I'm sorry, I must get some fresh air". She got up quickly. A vision reached her mind suddenly. It was very intense, as if she experienced it in the reality.

"White blinding light; on its background a man dressed in black with long hair blowing in the breeze. He smiled maliciously."

The girl noticed that the mysterious boy had entered the room. New mental picture reached her mind. "His faint smile turned into intense laughter of satisfaction from the victory. Everything became black" Jessica took a few steps ahead and fell down on the exhibition knocking off all books. "Jessie!" Megan and Hope shouted rushing in the direction of their friend. She was unconscious.

"Jessie! Speak!" Trance leaned over her and tried to say something to her. People surrounded mutant girl. They were looking at her saying something to each other. A few persons wanted to help somehow, other escaped from bookstore in order to not have anything to do with this matter. Some obese woman with shrill voice screamed out her sorrows concerning modern young people. Megan became very nervous; she spread arms and wings in order to isolate her friend from the crowd. Somebody started calling her by names, somebody else shouted that monsters had hurt the girl and it was necessary to quickly call the Avengers. The fat woman with a shrill voice shared her sorrows concerning mutants with the world. Hope noticed that Jessica had moved her arm. She put her head on her own knees. Black-haired girl opened her eyes.

"What is happening, I'm feeling dizzy..."

Voices of the crowd reached her ears.

"Most probably she was high, dirty drug addict"

"Pity that girl didn't kill herself with these drugs"

"Look what she has on the neck, she is a Satanist"

"And what is protecting her - some monster"

"Disgusting mutants"

"They should hold them in the zoo." Jessica didn't withstand this hatred. She closed her eyes into which tears flew.

"Let us leave from here because I feel sick from the view of their muzzles."

"Can you get up?" Megan asked Jessica.

"Perhaps I'll help?" She heard man's voice. In the fraction of minute the tall boy with black hair who earlier had observed girls came up to them. He helped Jessica to stand up and leave the bookshop. Hope followed him. Megan turned to the crowd.

"You should be ashamed of yourself! Do you consider yourselves good people! You want to see the real monster? Look at the mirror!" Somebody threw book at her. Her head was hit. Trance saw entire situation. She took the book off the floor.

"Thanks! I wanted something to read!" She winked at people and moved in the direction of the exit from the shop.

"Thief!"

"Where is the security?"

"Somebody call the police!"

"Did somebody call Avengers?" Megan sadly looked at the gathered.

"Freak!"

"Oddball!"

"Come back to Xavier!" Shouts of the crowd annoyed the girl. She tightened her eyes brimmed with tears. Somebody screamed suddenly:

"They should have put you in a jar after the birth!" The girl didn't withstand the last sentence. She spread her wings and released cloud of hallucinogenic dust at the crowd.

Three friends and the stranger went to the nearby park on the hill above the supermarket. Jessica was feeling much better, but the others insisted that she lay down for a moment on the bench standing under the wide-stretching oak. The boy handed the bottle of water to her.

"Thanks for everything..." Jessie said.

"Thanks from all of us." Hope replied fanning herself with the book taken from the shop. "Don't thank me... it was nice to help such cool girls". The stranger answered. He looked at girls with his deep, black eyes.

Sirens of police cars, the fire service and ambulances were heard in the distance. Dozens of people were running all over the car park of the supermarket, many of them were still under the influence of hallucinations. Megan was sitting hunched at the corner of the bench. She hid her head in hands.

"You caused fairly good chaos there". The boy added.

"I know it was stupid. It certainly won't help the image of mutants in our society". Hope announced and placed her hands on Megan's back.

"It's not your fault. You were horrified; you had the right to defend yourself". Megan wiped the tears away from eyes.

"That's not the point, that's not the point... I can't stand this hate".

"We'd better come back to the school." Jessica announced rising from the bench.

"I'm feeling much better". She added.

"Shouldn't you go to the hospital, to have a check-up?" The boy asked.

"There is a good doctor at our school. The best one." Preview replied.

"Listen girls, Can I accompany you up to gates of the Institute?" The stranger smiled to girls.

Megan and Hope were silent not knowing what to answer.

"Of course you can!" Jessica announced.

"It'll be nice". Girls were surprised with their friend's answer because they knew that she wasn't very fond of strangers. Hope came up to the boy and gave him the book.

"Listen, Could you somehow take it back there? I don't want them to call me a thief on the television..."

"With a pleasure." black-haired man went up the hill. He looked at the crowd gathering in front of the supermarket. He saw the group of people and among them employees of the shop. He took a swing and threw the book in their direction with all his might. The book flew with the wind and then hit pavement near people with a loud thud. In the prevailing noise nobody noticed it. Hope burst out laughing.

When three girls reached the gates of the Xavier's Institute, dark clouds appeared on the sky and covered the Sun. The cold, unpleasant wind heralded coming of the inevitable rain. The mysterious boy said goodbye to mutant girls. Hope asked somebody for Dr McCoy. Meanwhile WolfCub finished playing football. He was heading to the dormitory, when a strong wind brought him some bad smell. The boy stopped immediately. He ran as crazy to the gate.

"WolfCub! What happened! Come back!" Match shouted to him.

"Come back to the school everyone! See what they're showing on the television! What the girl from Paragons did in the city!" A mutant with skin formed from rock screamed from a distance. Nicholas found himself at the gate. He noticed the tall boy who brought girls to the institute a moment ago. He bristled and prepared for the fight.

"Stop!" Wolf boy shouted to the stranger.

"I don't know who you are, but I feel that something bad is lurking in you!" He clenched fists and whirred.

"Go away before I call the X-Men!" Black-haired man turned to him and smiled ironically.

"Freak..." He whispered and moved in the direction known only to him. WolfCub was staying by the gate thinking about who he met a moment ago.

Girls were waiting before the entrance to the clinic. Dr. McCoy came to them as quickly as he could. He was a mutant of great physique, with body covered with blue hair. His face looked like the face of the lion. He was wearing glasses.

"Your friend called me. Come inside Jessica, I'll examine you right away. I heard also about what had occurred in the supermarket. Television has been broadcasting the unfortunate incident every few minutes. Don't you have a few words of the explanation for Scott Summers or your advisor?" He said looking at young mutants. Jessica entered the study of the doctor. Megan burst out crying.

"I'm sorry!" She shouted and then quickly ran in the direction of the exit door. She hit Mark going to the clinic.

"Megan? What's the matter with you?" The boy asked. Mutant girl didn't answer him. The DJ ran up to Hope and Beast.

"What happened to her? She cried like a little child." He thought that the gathered people might know what was wrong with his redhead friend. He noticed Preview.

"Jessie? How are you? I heard about what happened..."

"Calm down. Jessica needs rest and peace now so that I can examine her." McCoy replied. He asked the girl to come inside the clinic and wanted to close the door. Hope stopped his hand.

"Please, doctor McCoy. Please let me stay with her. I'll explain everything to you. I'll tell what occurred in that supermarket. Please..." McCoy fell into a pensive mood. After a while she decided to grant the girl's wish.

"Yeah, Ok. But then you will go to Scott Summers and Shan, ok?"

"Yes." Hope replied him. She turned to Mark.

"Mark, please. Go see what happened to Megan. She needs you now more than ever before." The boy wasn't sure about what he had to do. Girl was really important to him and he knew that in such a moment he had a huge chance to get closer to her but he didn't know whether it would be all right. However he decided to go after her. Thunderclaps were heard from outside and the sky was lighted by some faraway lightning. The first drops of rain quickly became a violent downpour falling down on the surroundings of the institute submerged in evening's grayness.

Megan ran to her room and quickly jumped on her bed. She curled up on the couch and started crying. She closed her wings covering herself from the entire world. Mark gently opened the door and came inside. He saw that the girl was in tears, her body was shaking. He sat down by her and then put his hands on her back. Mutant girl noticed his presence. She spread her wings showing the face. She was crying.

"Don't cry Megan. It's all over. There will be a better day tomorrow." Sobbing girl hugged to her friend. Mark was surprised, but he quickly reacted embracing her.

"Put these earplugs on." He handed disc-man to her.

"Relax." He added.

"And you think that it'll help me?" Megan threw them on the floor. The boy knew that he must resolve her case in a different way.

"Don't cry, please. Nothing really happened. You were furious; you had the right to defend yourself. I would blow up these idiots also. I've seen the documentary. Television made monsters from all of you; I couldn't listen to it... But now everything is ok" Megan broke free for him.

"It'll never be ok! I'm an anomaly, freak, I'll always be this kind of monstrosity for the world! These insults will never end!" She shouted feeling terrible anger.

"You know well that there'll always be at least one person who will defend you..." Eyes of the girl widened from a surprise. Mark hugged her closer to himself and then he kissed her lips. The girl embraced him and allowed for the kiss. She closed eyes from which a few tears flowed again. They stopped.

"You know, these people were right with one thing. You are different, exceptional. At the beginning you were only one among many of girls at school who I wanted to be with, but now I know that it must be you. I love you, Megan." He embraced her firmly and then kissed her passionately again. Megan covered herself and him with her wings. She wanted to go as far as possible from cruel reality she had experienced that day and embraces of the friend and his mouth were a perfect escape for her. In her heart of hearts she knew that she would never be able to let him walk away.

Dr. Henry McCoy turned on all futuristically looking diagnostic tools which he had in the laboratory. He examined Jessica's body with the medical scanner which was a gift from Reed Richards and the scanning device which was given the school by people from intergalactic Shi'Ar empire and modified by the genius inventor Forge. No illness, even at earliest stage of development could be overlooked by this device. He also performed a couple of more traditional medical examinations. He unfortunately couldn't find the reason for girl's loss of consciousness in the supermarket. Henry was working and simultaneously was listening to Hope's story about the event in the city. Jessica looked out from behind sci-fi looking apparatus.

"Doctor McCoy, how much time do I have?" She asked.

"Your body is completely healthy, of course not counting the irritation of mucous membranes caused by allergy, Jessica. Seriously, I didn't find any reason for your collapsing. Anything that caused it didn't come from the interior of your body. I'm recommending you rest through a few hours until Miss Frost comes back to the institute. She'll examine you telepathically".

"Eh …" The girl moaned clearly displeased with staying in the isolation.

"And now I have to excuse myself, because I have to talk with your friend about your little adventure." He put his hairy hand on the Hope's shoulder and headed towards the exit with her.

"I'll come back soon." Trance informed her friend.

Meanwhile more and more young mutants were gathering on the corridor outside the clinic. They learnt from TV and other people from the Institute about the happening in the city. Match and WolfCub were there also. Their friends were asking them about details of the event although they knew that they weren't with the girls when unfortunate accident had happened. WolfCub told the leader of his team about strange meeting in which he participated by the gate of the school. Their colleagues heard the conversation.

"The boy you are describing came to the school with girls from your group." A blue-skinned, bald mutant informed him.

"What? It's impossible, are you sure about this?" The bald man confirmed.

"It's apparent that he plotted something bad. I saw his eyes. I sensed such a terrible hostility from him..." Nicholas raised his voice.

"Did he bring our girls? He had to meet them in the shop when it had happened..." Match replied.

"Do you think that he...? He could have some connection with the crowd's reaction."

"We should ask some telepath to check Jessie, Megan and Hope's minds."

Beast finished the conversation with Hope. The girl was looking at the photograph hanging on one of walls of the study portraying the first X-Men with Professor Xavier, all dressed in yellow-blue costumes - four boys and one redhead girl.

"Scott Summers, Miss Grey, Iceman, this rich person with wings and last one. It was really Dr. McCoy. When he looked normally?" Eyesight of mutant girl stayed on the face of the young, smiling boy in glasses.

"I won't be telling you what you would hear from Mr. Summers about the power and the responsibility, Xavier's dream and ways of his realization. I must fight the opinion of the chatterbox which I have in this school". Henry said and laughed.

"I'll only say one: irrespective of how we deal with such people we cannot come down to their level." Tears appeared in Hope's eyes.

"Perhaps it's simple for you. You are known and you belong to the X-Men. We must deal with such situations the way we're able. You didn't feel this hostility; you couldn't hear all these insults..." The girl bit her tongue. She went quiet. She looked at the figure of Dr. McCoy covered with blue fur with the lion's face.

"I'm sorry".

"I'll tell you about something that happened to me in the certain bookshop. I was looking through newest publications about electron configurations in nanostructures when some young man probably with low IQ threw a puff of wool at me saying: sweetie-pie, sweetie-pie. I threw this object back to him politely saying that my scholarship is from the scope of biochemistry, the molecular biology and physics rather than crocheting."

"I want to see his face." Hope replied and then she burst out laughing together with Henry.

"I'll talk with Scott about you." McCoy replied.

"Go to Jessie and then have some rest together."

"Doctor McCoy... thank you... and I'm sorry..."

"I said that you mustn't worry about anything."

"That's not the point, Doctor. You see, when I arrived here for the first time I was afraid of you. Later, I also felt certain discomfort during lessons. But now I can see that you are the coolest teacher." Henry smiled. Hope said goodbye to him and came back to the room where Jessica was lying. Outside the clinic an impressive crowd of students gathered.

"We must track him down! We'll force him to say what he did to girls." Mutant with fiery red hair screamed.

"Nick, do you remember his smell? You can take us to him." Ben announced.

"I remember, such a stink can't be forgotten."

"We'll demonstrate him what freak really means." Mutant whose skin was looking as made out of the jelly replied. Megan and Mark joined to the group. They were holding each other by hands. They quickly learnt what the assembly was all about.

"That's not true! You don't understand! This boy helped us. He helped Jessie go out from this shop before the crowd managed to do her something. He's different, he isn't afraid of us, he doesn't hate..." The ginger girl tried to explained everything concerning the boy.

"Really?" WolfCub became nervous.

"Why did he look at me in a disgust and called me a freak?"

"He was so nice to us; if he didn't show up the crowd could do something to Jessie." Pixie announced. Students become very noisy. Everyone tried to tell their own arguments.

'Calm down! Only Paragons must stay! The rest of students are supposed to return to the dormitory!' Everyone heard the telepathic shout in heads. Emma Frost dressed in white appeared on the corridor. Shan was standing behind her.

„Miss Frost! I'll explain." Megan wanted to say something, but Frost hushed her up.

"There is no such need Megan. I read everything in your head as soon as I entered here. The matter of the shop will be later settled by me. Now I am more interested in what you talked about. You could introduce me to the topic, Nicholas?"

Jessica was lying on the hospital bed. A rain was falling behind windows, sky was grey and grimly. Branches of tree were hitting the pane forced by blasts of wind. The girl was looking at the ceiling, she let her thoughts wander. Her brown eyes betrayed that she was struggling with something inwardly, she was trying to remember something, but in a vain. The face of the girl became pale, as if she got scared of something or learnt some unpleasant and shaking news. Hope came up to her bed. She sat down by her and leaned over her.

"What's going on Jessie? Are you feeling bad... you're pale." - she started the conversation looking in the eyes of her friend. Jessica didn't answer her, she didn't listened to her.

"Or perhaps you could see something? Did you have the vision? - asked Trance. Tears shined in black-haired girl's eyes.

"Nothing... I could see completely nothing and still I can't see..." Tear flowed down across her cheek. She turned her head towards the friend.

"Hope I probably..." She swallowed hard.

"I probably lost my abilities."

Hope came out on the corridor. She was glad when she saw her teammates talking with Frost.

"Miss Frost, please come here! Jessica probably... Jessica lost her abilities." Emma ran into the hospital room. All Jessica's friends and her advisor followed her. Frost sat down on the bed of raven haired girl, ordered her to lie down and relax. She closed her eyes. Using her telepathy she sank into the world of the mind of the girl. After a few minutes she rapidly opened her eyes.

"What's with her Emma?" Shan asked. The woman was silent for a moment. Everyone looked at her with eyes full of anxiety.

"Nothing... completely nothing... I cannot go inside her, as if she protected herself against us behind the mental barrier."

"Please try to relax Jessie." Shan asked her. The girl dressed in blue jeans jacket and trousers accessed the clinic's room. She had black hair and brown eyes. She looked very much like Jessie.

"I was with friends from the group on a trip. I arrived as soon as I learnt what had happened. Jessie, are you all right?" Preview was silent. She looked at new person.

"I'm fine Sarah". She answered harshly and got up. Emma tried to stop her, because she wanted to look into her awareness much deeper. Shan stopped her.

"Not today".

Jessica quickly left the clinic. She wanted to be alone. Large crowd in a one small room horrified her. She passed the girl similar to her without a word. Hope noticed tears shining in her eyes and lowered her head sadly.

"She is going to her room. I'll go after her." Hope proposed. The rain kept falling on the institute's windows and thunders were heard from far away. The storm was coming back over school.

Having come back to the dormitory Trance found Preview sobbing by the desk. The girl was holding someone's crumpled photograph in the hand. Tears entirely destroyed her make-up. She knew that her friend was standing by her and she could see her in such a bad state, but she wasn't upset by it. Something in her cracked and she no longer could stop emotions jumbling inside her head.

"Why must I always finish as a weirdo? As fucking freak?" She said through the tears. Hope came closer and touched her hesitantly.

"What are you trying to say Jessie?"

"When I was a little child, I was different, always liking something else than my friends... Always pointed by others..." She crumpled photo closing her eyes. She decided to shout out everything what was sitting heavily on her soul, free herself of the tension.

"Do you want to listen to the story about the unlucky girl?" She asked. Hope nodded. She was worried about her friend. She heard words of Emma Frost in the head from the day before.

"When I was 13, my parents went separate ways and I went to New Mexico with my mum. I was a misfit who arrived out from nowhere again. This time however I got to know a wonderful friend... We understood one another without words."

"Is it she?" Hope looked at the photograph. It showed younger Jessica dressed in the bright shirt and some other girl with the strong dark make-up dressed in black clothes.

"She taught me the way of life, how to escape from the cruel reality and nasty people. Thanks to her I was born anew... But two years later... my abilities developed. Previously I had only prophetic dreams occasionally which I didn't take seriously but from my 16 year, visions which always came true appeared. One day I had the vision of Michelle's death on the street. I called her and asked her to take care of herself. She listened to me. She didn't go out of her home; she helped her mother in a small garden. And then it happened... Some fucking son of a bitch didn't control his car and drove into Michelle's garden. She died immediately." Jessica had hard time telling the story of her past. Tears were flowing down her face.

"If I hadn't asked her to stay at home, she would have been alive today. I was to blame for her death. I wanted to change the future, change the fate…" Hope paled.

"That's not true..." She whispered.

"On top of all of that people learnt about my abilities and organized the "witch-hunt", the entire damn town. I didn't withstand it. I wanted to join Michelle." The girl showed her friend scars on her wrists. Hope got really scared. She was silent not knowing what to say.

"I failed this as every other thing in my fucking life. Some cleaning lady entered the bathroom too quickly. I was taken to a hospital. And then came week on the drip and next two of hopelessly stupid talks with the psychologist. The fuss around my person reached here and people from Xavier's Institute - Scott Summers and Jean Grey appeared in my room. They proposed me to move to your school. I didn't give shit at the beginning. I was totally indifferent to everything around me and to myself. But it started to change later... I belonged here, as the misfit amongst misfits I admit, but always. I finally didn't feel cornered. But now... now everything will change."

"Jessica! Don't talk like that. Nothing has changed and nothing ever will."

"It's ironic… my frigging powers which took everything what was precious to me away, caused also that I had found my own space on the Earth. Now it's finished... When Frost will learn that I'm not a mutant anymore she'll expel me from the school. I'll lose everything again..." She started crying more intensively.

"Damn it, I don't want somebody to see me in such a state..."

"It's the first I'm telling about it somebody else than some psychologist. I'm acting in defiance of myself, but somehow it isn't moving me". Trance didn't know how to talk to the friend about such a difficult matters.

"Jessie. I'm your friend. It'll never go out beyond this room." Hope hugged her. She felt that the girl was shaking and embraced her more firmly. She placed her head against girl's forehead.

"After all you don't know whether you lost anything. Frost and Dr. McCoy will examine you and they'll find the cause of your state. Certainly they'll find a way to heal you. And if they don't, it'll change nothing between us." Preview came up to the bed and sat on it. Hope came closer to her quickly and then she hugged her again. Jessie put her head on friend's breasts, she tried not to escape from closeness. Trance started playing with her hair.

"Nothing will change between us... unless into something better..." She whispered quietly.

A night dawned and the silver Moon raised high in the sky. Surroundings were poured with its glitter and silent peace. In the room of girls a bedside lamp was glowing with a warm light. Hope was sitting on the bed reading some book. She had glasses because without them she couldn't see well from near distances. Jessica exhausted with the entire day was lying on back with her eyes closed. She tried to fall asleep. Girls were not talking to each other pretending that previous conversations hadn't taken place. Jessica wanted it and Hope granted her request. After a moment black haired girl moved, dressed her slippers and directed at the door.

"I thought that you were sleeping. Where are you going?" Hope asked her.

"To the crapper." Preview replied unenthusiastically.

"Don't worry about me. I'll do nothing stupid." She added after a moment.

Jessie was coming back from the toilet through the corridor plunged in total darkness. She stopped and tried to use her abilities, tried to see a second from the future of the surroundings closest to her. In the morning it was as equally natural for her as breathing, it came even when she didn't want it. Now even if she reached deep inside the mind she could not find in it the smallest vision, even without a meaning. She banged her fist against the wall. She was furious at herself. She felt as helpless as when the special abilities revealed themselves to her for the first time. Feeling of fear returned. She felt that it was getting more and more cold around her. She embraced herself by arms and headed for her room. She opened the door slightly. Creaking was unusually loud in the silence prevailing on the corridor. She gazed inside. The room was bathed in the darkness and Hope was sleeping. It seemed very strange to the girl, because when she had left room her friend had been reading something.

"It's impossible that I was in the bathroom and on the corridor so long. I could spend there at least few minutes." She felt very uncomfortable and feeling of chills intensified. Everything around seemed unrealistic to her, as if she was dreaming. She heard the loud clank. Something fell down on the floor of the corridor. She was curious, left the room and looked at one of the windows. It was opened and under it a fallen pot with a cactus was lying on the floor. The moonlight was falling on it creating a long, black shadow twisting around the floor. The window was clattering being hit with blasts of the wind and curtains were moving as if they were alive. Jessie slowly headed in the direction of the window. She felt that something there was inviting her, pulling her by a force which she wasn't able to escape from. A howling of the dog was heard somewhere in the distance. The silver Moon was mirrored in pupils of the girl. Mutant girl kneeled by the flowerpot. She picked it up. Something suddenly ordered her to look at the window. She sensed someone's presence strongly.

Young man dressed completely in black was standing or rather floating in the air above the window. He had long black hair and brown eyes. His dark cape was blowing in the breeze. He moved his hand to Jessica. She could not make any move; she felt as if somebody took a control over her, paralyzed all her limbs. She looked at his face bathed in silver gleam. She extended a hand to him as hypnotized. Their hands met in the absolute silence. The girl felt strange, everything around her seemed to wash away and she had a feeling that she was dreaming. The stranger smiled to her. A huge wind was blowing but it seemed delicate like touching of feathers for Jessie. Holding the hand of the boy she had a feeling that she was touching cold stream. Her mind freed itself of all thoughts. A few minutes passed which seemed eternity to her. When she regained the ability to think, she noticed that she wasn't at school anymore. She was gliding amongst clouds carried with unseen force and the stranger was flying by her. She looked below. She saw nothing apart from clouds. The boy smiled to her again.

"Satisfied with the ride?" He asked her. Jessie could already think freely.

"Who are you? What the hell do you want to do with me! What do you want from me?" Young man showed her by a gesture to be quiet.

"Look!" He pointed at the sky above him. The girl unintentionally granted his request. A sea of stars gleaming like jewels was stretching above her. Huge Moon shining as if it was made from the precious stone reigned on it. Red lines of meteorites entering the atmosphere were cutting across the sky every couple of minutes.

"Nice..." Jessie stared at the beautiful view. She forgot about the situation in which she was. She turned her head in the direction of the boy. His eyes gleamed as stars.

"Real sky, right?" He whispered and floated to her. He embraced her with arms and kissed her lips. He did it gently and the girl didn't try to free herself from his embrace. She couldn't and maybe she didn't want to. She felt the warmth. She really wanted this moment to last forever.

Jessica opened her eyes. She was on a desert in the middle of long motorway. Only starlight and the Moon lightened the space with the same intensity as during girls' "air trip". The girl started looking around searching for her companion. She noticed him standing in the darkness. He didn't say a word to her.

"Who are you? What do you want from me? Why did you take me into this place?" Jessica demanded the reply. She tried to show that she wasn't afraid of him but it didn't come out good. Her voice cracked.

"I am your dream." The stranger answered. He came up to her and touched her hair.

"One can see great pain and sadness in your eyes, Jessica. Looking at them I can see the past full of fear and rejection." Mutant girl became nervous. She quickly moved away from him.

"You're a telepath, I know! You pig! How dare you look inside my memories! You fucking bastard!"

The man smiled.

"I am your dream, part of you. Your memories are mine. Remember about it." Jessica didn't know how to behave. She was really stressed out. She wanted to call her friends, X-Men, Emma Frost for help, but she knew that it was impossible. The boy touched her eyelids with tips of fingers. Moments from her life started moving in front of Jessie eyes.

"She can see herself as a little girl going far away from the rest of the children.

Nobody is speaking to her. Nobody understands interests of her. Fun with the sister and feeling of happiness. She can see the dream in which her parents went separate ways and then it comes out as reality. Cry for her sister and her father. Attacks from the entire city and the children's mockery of trouble of her family. Crying of her mother.

First days at new school. The rejection and revealing of her abilities. Prophecies for girls, taken as a play at first. When they are coming true, friends are forsaking her. She becomes entirely lonely. Michelle's hand reaching her and the beginning of the true friendship. Her transformation - a way she dress and lives changes. Hiding herself from the harsh world inside a hard armor. Tragic death of Michelle and sense of guilt.

Jessie abilities are coming to light. The Michelle's mother is hitting her face calling her witch.

Blood is flowing down the lip of the girl. Hate of the city for her and her mother.

Breaking point - Taking her own life. The crying of her mother and the hospital. First school day at Xavier's. Empty eyes not expressing any feelings."

"Stop it!" Jessica shouted. She pushed the boy away with all her might.

"Nobody gave you the right to dig around in my memories!" She opened her eyes. She was standing in the school corridor again. Black dressed boy was floating over the window.

"You experienced so much pain from people of this world. Wouldn't you like to go to the place where you would always be happy? Where everyone would live only for you? Think about it."

Jessie was silent. The stranger turned his back to her. He started disappearing.

"Wait... Will I be able to meet with you again?"

"Yes. It'll be enough just to say my name - Sleepwalker." He gave her the parting smile and then disappeared.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Dreams and the escape**

When Jessica was experiencing her extraordinary adventure, everyone in the school were plunged in the dreams: strange, very real dreams, which turned events taken out of their past into awful, twisted and nightmarish visions.

Scott Summers dreamt of love, sex with Emma Frost and the heat of desire. For the first time in the life he is happy, tied up with nothing, crazy and light-hearted the same as his lover. For the first time he is truly in love. Emma nestled on his body is embracing him. Her skin is turning into diamond.

"I love you." She is whispering to him. A crack appears on ruby quartz glasses. The unnoticeable scratch is enlarging its length with every passing moment. Emma is putting finger on Cyclops' mouth.

"Do you love me too so sincerely?"

Scott is answering her without any hesitation.

"Of course I do."

"I love you only. For the first time in my life I know what the love is".

"Truly?" Emma is enquiring.

"Truly."

His glasses are breaking and a bundle of lethal energy is escaping from his eyes. The shot is smashing Emma's diamond face. Scott is horrified with what he did to his lover. Under the broken mask other face appears. The storm of red hair is spilling out on the man.

"Liar." Jean Grey is saying and bloody tears are flowing down her eyes.

Scott woke up from his dream.

Emma dreamt of her greatest defeats.

Emma dressed in White Queen's clothing she used to wear in the Hellfire Club is sitting in a courtroom. She is accused. "Death of students, non-accomplishment of her duties, failing in the role of the teacher, destroying the dream..." Catseye, Roullette, Jetstream, Bevatron, Beef, Tarot, her other first Hellions and Skin and Synch are sitting on the court's benches. The bench filled with people is going on and on: Genosha, 16 million. The sentence is reached: "living in a constant sense of guilt." The judges are Charles Xavier and Magneto. Emma is crying.

Emma woke up from her dream.

Dr. Henry McCoy dreamt of his hidden anxieties.

There is a dark night. Old newspapers are kicking around in dirty streets there and back. Families with children are walking around. They are visiting the funfair plunged into darkness, a circus full of dancing fire-eaters blowing flames up to the sky. An illuminated tent is standing in the city centre with a large inscription "Freakshow" on it. Henry is sitting inside a cage. There is a darkness here, little can be seen. He can hear the laughter, sounds of the surprise, cries of fear. Eyes, thousands of eyes are looking at him from behind the cage. Wonder of nature. Genetic mistake.

"Lady and gentlemen, Living cat man. The only cat who have the doctorate in physics." The owner of the circus is screaming and people are answering with a laughter, with a surprise, with a terror. Somebody from a crowd is throwing a puff of wool. Henry is catching it, he is playing like a cat to a delight of the assembled.

Henry woke up from his dream.

Bizarre dreams didn't pass Jessie's friends from her squad. Each of them travelled across worlds arising from their memories, thoughts and anxieties, acting according to the principles of the logic of dreams being able to transform even the most innocent visions into ghostly images sticking in the deep subconscious of young mutants.

Ben Hamil dreamt.

Match is sitting again in the park in which his abilities turned up for the first time a few years ago. He feels the intense heat on his skin coming from the summer's Sun and a fever which is ravaging his body. He is listening to conversations of his friends who are accompanying him but don't understand a word. Suddenly his skin is bursting into flames. Two girls standing close to him are touched by flames immediately and completely consumed by the fire. They are screaming terribly. Grass, trees, houses in the vicinity, everything around the boy is catching the fire. He is helpless, he feels great fear seeing that he is safe in the violent inferno while his friends are dying in horrible torments. After a moment he notices that he is attached to some pole. He is burning. People are screaming:

"Devil, child of the Satan, monster."

"Why isn't he burning? He should die! Stick silver stake through his heart! "

He is looking at them and their bodies are bursting into flames. He is reigning over everything submerged in terror, King of Hells, Master of Demons. The Devil. The Number of Beast.

"617 + 49"

Match woke up from his dream.

Hope Abbot dreamt.

Hope is laying inside the coffin. She has closed eyes, she is dressed in black. A lot of flowers lies around her and her parents are crying. She is hovering above everyone in the form of her astral projection. She is screaming with all her might, she wants somebody to hear her. She wants to say that she didn't die, that she is able to come back to her body. Nobody is reacting to her attempts to establish the contact. The coffin is put to the pit, people dressed in black are starting throwing the earth on it. Faces of everyone around are expressing great sadness. The girl in the wraithlike figure with tears in her eyes is attacking her own father. She is hitting him with fists.

"Look at me! I didn't die! "

"For us... you died" The man is answering and he is pushing her away.

"I am disgusted with you, I don't need such a daughter." Girl is sitting hunched on the grass, she is crying.

Hope woke up from her dream.

Mark Sheppard dreamt.

He is experiencing his sad past. He is in his old school, his team is preparing for the performance on the school party. Everything is buttoned up, it must be a success. More and more people are gathering in the room in which he is supposed to appear. Lightings are darkening, the concert is starting. People are dancing on the parquet listening to hits of his group. She is standing among them - Cherry, Mark's girlfriend. She is smiling to him, he is waving his hand. The boy is enraptured, he is playing on the electric guitar, it looks like he is performing for her ears only. A pressure wave of air is reaching the ears of the boy from loudspeakers, it's his own music. His body is on the fire and his eyes are shining red. Huge explosion destroys everything around. The energy is skinning all members of his band, all people in the room. It is reaching Cherry and tearing her to shreds. Mark is standing alone amongst wrecks of the school and corpses of his friends. He is holding Cherry's dress in hands. He is crying. He can see the local sheriff behind himself. The grey haired man is aiming a gun at him. He is ignoring him and waiting calmly for the bullet.

Mark woke up from his dream.

Megan Gwyn dreamt.

She thinks that she is a little girl again. She is running all over the meadows with her best friend. The ruins of the castle are stretching before her. Tiny shining pellets are flying all around her body. Every one of them is showering her with a dust gleaming in the moonlight. Two girls are jumping on walls of the castle, they think that they are participating in some remarkable adventure. Suddenly the stone is smashing under the foot of Megan. The girl is falling into the darkness. She thinks that she is flying the entire eternity and finally she hits something hard. She is calling for help. She is calling her friend, but in a vain. More and more and more fairy lights are being collected around her body. Megan is screaming louder. Color wings are protruding from her back. Her friend is bending over the well.

"I cannot help you. You don't belong to this world " She is saying and fairy lights around Megan are laughing maliciously. The girl is trying to scream, but she is speechless.

Pixie woke up from her dream.

Nicholas Gleason dreamt.

He is running through a gloomy, dark forest, clearly escaping from something. He is sweaty and gasping. He is horrified, he is looking behind every couple of minutes. He is exhausted and must rest, leaning against the tree. After a moment a noise is shaking the forest: the whine connected with whirring and hitting against the hard earth. A pack of wolves is running out of thickets. Every of wild beasts is pitch-black, their eyes are shining red, saliva is dripping from their mouths. Pack is moving to the boy like the wave of the tsunami. Wolfs aren't attacking him. They are running past him knocking him with their shaggy bulks. The boy isn't afraid, he becomes calm. He is feeling more and more happy. After a moment he is joining the group. He is running with animals and his eyes are glowing in red. He is running to meet the moonlit night leaving his humanity behind himself.

WolfCub woke up from his dream.

Jessica Vale didn't dream more that night.

...

Jessica woke up, when the first rays of the sunshine found their way to her room. She rolled to the other side of the bed trying to fall asleep again. After a moment of failures she resigned from it. She looked at the bed standing opposite to her own. Hope was still sleeping. She reached toward the desk taking the clock from it and noticing that there was 6: 30 at the morning. She put the object back on its place and took her discman. She turned the first track available, put the headphones on her ears and closed her eyes. Her mind was filled with sounds of the melody.

_Lay your head down_

_And sleep on my shoulder_

_Lay your head down_

_And start a new dream_

_And for tonight the moment is over_

_Drift in lullaby_

_Here where the stars reside_

_And angels are always seen_

Jessica was surprised with the music she heard. She didn't remember that she put this song in the memory of the device. Her surprise quickly passed and black-haired girl stopped bothering herself with unnecessary thoughts and decided to lie a little longer listening intently to the melody.

_Lay your head down _

_The stars they have whispered _

_Hear what they say _

_And know that it means _

_The moon is your guide _

_The stars they have kissed her _

_As she goes gently by _

_Light as a baby's eye _

_Safe on a fairytales dream _

Hope got up a few minutes after her black haired friend. She was in a hurry, because she didn't want to be late for the class in the Danger Room. She sat down on the bed of her friend preventing her from listening to the melody which was flowing directly to raven haired girl's ears.

"Hi Jessie! How are you feeling today?" She asked. Black-haired girl turned the music off. She looked at Hope's face.

"Better. I was dreaming of something pleasant".

"You will tell me about it when I come back from the Danger Room. Today we're repeating the same exercise which we screwed up yesterday".

"I won't be there, so WolfCub won't be a problem".

"Jessie... I forgot to ask... what about your abilities? Did they..." Preview shook her head saying no. "But you'd better also get up and get dressed. Miss Frost will be waiting for you in her study and if you don't appear..." Hope advised her.

"I know, I know... psycho-projection and headache all the day". Hope laughed and quickly left the room. Jessica turned her Discman on. As it turned out the song listened by her have ended.

_And start a new dream_

She put the device back on the shelf and got up. The unusual meeting from the yesterday night was on her mind all the time, she was trying to recall the face and the smile of the mysterious boy. She wasn't sure whether the thing she remembered had really happened, or it was only a dream phantom triggered by the multitude of emotions from the day before. She knew that she must talk about it with somebody. Anger seized her at the thought that she had to tell Emma Frost and Cyclops about everything. She corrected her hair moving in the direction of the door.

"She'll read everything from my memory. I'd better go to her for examination". She said quietly to herself.

Emma Frost was sitting by the wooden desk in her study. Scott Summers was standing close to her dressed in his uniform to fight. Opposite the pair of mutants the man in a suit, representative of the shop in which the incident with the involvement of mutants happened the day before and the policeman keeping him company were standing. Frost patiently listened about everything the man accused her students and her school of. After his monologue, she got up. She looked at him with cold eyesight.

"My students acted in self-defense. There is the true version of those events. I heard their story out and it's not possible that I couldn't detect even the smallest lie. The case is closed and you don't have the right to demand the penalty for anybody from this school. If you don't leave us alone, certain people will become interested why the employees of your shop didn't give aid to the girl whose health or even life was in danger. I can bring you trouble and believe me, I have appropriate means to do it".

The man tried to say something. He became red with an anger. The policeman came up to him and asked him to leave. Emma sat down. When guests closed the door behind themselves, Scott turned to the woman.

"Don't you think you went too far? The intimidation and this policeman... you controlled him, am I right ?"

"Scott, darling, if you could hear what they thought about us you would do them something far more unpleasant".

In the same moment Jessica entered the study. She was dressed the same as the day before.

"Enter, Jessica." Frost announced.

"I'll leave you two alone." Cyclops said and left the study. Jessica sat down on the chair staying by Emma's desk.

"Were that guy and the policeman here because of yesterday?" She asked.

"Yes, but everything was already explained, don't worry about this."

"Thank you".

"What's with your powers Jessica? Did they return? Did something change?"

"Unfortunately not... I'm still not able to see any visions".

"Jessica, did something special happen last night ?" Emma asked the girl. Young mutant fell into a pensive mood. She didn't know how to reply. Frost guessed that black-haired is trying to conceal something.

"I don't know..." Jessica whispered. After a moment of thought she decided to continue.

"I had a strange, terribly realistic dream, as if I experienced it in the reality".

"Dream?" Frost was surprised.

"Was it a terrible dream?" She asked. Jessie shook her head.

"No, my dream was rather pleasant... but can't you read it from my memories?"

Emma became irritated by the girl's question.

"You know very well that I am not acting this way. I value your privacy, although some of you claim that it is different. But apart from that... I cannot. I am not even able to do superficial scanning in order to see how are you feeling. As if you built the wall around your mind".

"Do you think that I am doing it on purpose?"

"No, Jessica, I know that you don't. I can see that you are frightened by what happened to you and you want me to help you. Apart from that construction of the psychological wall impenetrable for me, would be possible only for very powerful telepaths like Charles Xavier. Perhaps you are doing it unconsciously... but it would mean that you are an omega in such a young age".

"Maybe somebody else did something to my head?" Jessica suggested the solution for the mystery.

"It it the most logical explanation". The blonde woman concluded.

"Nice..." The girl sighed.

"This person must be really good... I don't sense his presence, even if I try to look deep inside your consciousness". Frost answered honestly.

"Could you... for the last time... look into my head and check what happened with these damn powers?" Jessica asked with a sad smile. Emma saw sadness and fear painted on the face of young mutant. She got up from her chair and came up to her.

"Well... relax, think about nothing. Don't resist". The girl closed her eyes. Emma touched her forehead. Both women had not been moving for a few minutes. Emma resigned. She sat down by the desk and buried the head in her hands. Jessica settled herself more comfortably in the chair.

"Nothing?" She asked with a hesitation.

"Nothing. Will you tell me about your dream?" The teacher suggested. Jessica looked at the wall, then at the ceiling as if she wanted to avoid the reply. She felt eyes of Emma Frost drilling through her body. In the end she reached a conclusion, that it will be better for her, when she tells everything about what was sitting heavily on her soul. She protracted and started her story.

Meanwhile Paragons finished their training in the Danger Room. They were walking through the dressing room toward showers. Hope fell behind with respect to the rest of the group.

"Hope!" Mark called her.

"Are you going?" Megan asked.

"I must do something, I'll join you later." Hope answered her. She stopped near the plaque hanging on one of the walls. She looked at the photographs of all groups of young mutants. She stopped at the picture of her squad. She passed the finger over faces of all her friends stopping on Jessica's image. She smiled.

"Hope? What are you doing? Don't you have a class...?" Shan asked entering the room.

"I..." Hope was confused.

"I wanted to talk with you. About Jessie and... about myself."

"What's the problem?"

"I'd like to talk about it in private. It's a very private matter". The girl announced quietly.

"I can talk about it only with you..." She added.

In the same time, somewhere in completely different reality, in the place in which the time and space didn't have physical meaning, Sleepwalker was standing motionless on a grey, devoid of the flora rock protruding in the middle of the ocean. Waves were hitting the rock every couple of minutes scattering rain from drops of water all around. The wind was moving pitch-black clouds all over the purple sky. The dark cape of the man, as well as his hair were tousled by the strong breezes. Long-haired man smiled to himself.

"Everything is going according to the plan." He said to the person standing behind him who loomed into the view from the grayness ruling all around. It was the girl dressed in a black sleeveless dress. She had long and black hair. Her face was entirely covered by shadows.

"Will our dream come true?" She asked.

"Yes. I'll happen soon. Be patient..." The girl came up to the man and they together fixed their eyes on the raging elements surrounding them from every side.

After the conversation with Emma Frost, Jessica spent the beginning of the day in her room, because the teacher gave her one day of rest from school classes. She read a few next chapters of the book which she lent from the school library. When a lunchtime dawned, the girl decided to go down to the dining hall to meet with her friends from the group. The place wasn't crowded very much what pleased Jessica, because she didn't like crowds and the hubbub. When she entered the class, some song ended and the next one started on the radio standing somewhere in the room.

_Sweet dreams are made of this_

_Who am I to disagree? _

_I travel the world_

_And the seven seas-_

_Everybody's looking for something._

Black-haired girl noticed that everyone from the Paragons were sitting at the table close the window and the second door to dining hall. She came up to them. The group was talking about something. "Jessie! Come to us! We waited for you!" Ben announced.

"You didn't appear in classes! We thought that you had escaped from the school." Mark said. Jessica sat down by him.

"She gave me the time off. But only up to tomorrow". She answered and then looked at Hope. The girl seemed to be confused. She was clearly avoiding the eye contact with her friend.

"You are lucky, Jessie". Trance announced smiling a little. Nicholas wasn't delighted with the fact that Preview joined the table. He got up from the chair wanting to walk away. Match stopped him.

"You're sitting with us. We're a group". The leader of the team announced with a firm voice.

"Jessie.. Did you too have the nightmare last night? All of us, people from other groups also, had nightmares. Even our teachers". Megan said turning to black-haired girl.

"Hmm, Frost asked me precisely about the same thing..." Jessica replied.

"It's really interesting, what she dreamt about..." Mark asked.

"I don't know, she didn't tell me. But she ordered me to tell her my dream".

"Yours ? Did you also have the nightmare?" Megan joined the conversation again.

"No, not a nightmare. It was terribly realistic. As if I experienced it in reality. Dream about the mysterious man who took me to the ride amongst clouds... and then we kissed under the sky full of stars... oh well, I don't like to chat about such things".

"Fabulous dream, I want to have a similar one." Pixie said. Hope became sad listening to Jessie's story. She rose from the table.

"Hope? What's going on?" Mark asked her.

"Nothing. I'm just feeling bad, my head aches. I have next class in a hour, I want to take a nap before it."

The girl quickly left the dining room. Jessica knew that something had been wrong with her. She felt that she should go after her. Mark rested his hands on her shoulder.

"Jessica... Frost could not examine you telepathically, but I settled the next attempt for you".

"Attempt? Do you have somebody better than Frost? Perhaps you brought Xavier from Genosha?" Jessica was surprised.

"No, no, not... Three heads are better than one!"

"Three heads... Cuckoos? Do you want them to examine me?"

" It is always worthwhile to try!"

Jessie rose from the table and headed towards the exit. Mark went after her.

"Remember that you must be in the class in a half an hour, Mark! Frost didn't give you the time off!" Ben announced laughing.

Hope entered her room and immediately closed the door behind herself. She sat down by the desk simultaneously searching for something amongst papers lying on it. She took Jessica and Michelle's photograph. Tears appeared in her eyes. She crumpled the picture up. She put her head on the desk and covered it with hands. Everything pointed at the fact that she had started crying.

Mark and Jessica went together to the musical room. The room was big, the black grand piano was standing there and in the distance there was a podium on which instruments belonging to Mark and Jay Guthrie's band were placed. Through the huge window one could see green gardens of the Institute. On the other side of room, three girls were standing by the row of wooden, antique chairs. They were as similar to each other as drops of water, all of them had the medium-length blonde hair, the same hairstyles, the same jeans and blue shirts.

"Hi girls!" Mark cried out.

"Hi". Jessica also said hello.

"Hello." Cuckoos answered simultaneously.

"I brought the patient for you. Look into her head". The boy informed.

"If Miss Frost..."

"... didn't manage it can't be guaranteed..."

"... that we will succeed". announced Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe Cuckoo one after the other.

" It is always worthwhile to try!" Mark replied.

"Thank you girls." Jessica said sitting down on the chair.

Three-In-One put their hands on Preview's head. They ordered her to close her eyes and to think about nothing. The DJ wanted to talk about something, but girls quickly hushed him up. The utter silence prevailed and Cuckoos calmly studied the maze of the awareness and subconscious of their black-haired friend's mind. Suddenly three blondes jumped away from Jessie.

"What happened? Did you see something?" Mark asked.

"We don't know exactly what it was." Cuckoos announced.

"Barrier which cannot be penetrated is built..."

"... around your mind Jessica, barrier..."

"... which has internal source..."

After the last words, Celeste and Phoebe moved apart from Mindee. The girl approached the old radio standing in the vicinity. Gleaming eyes showed that she was using her mental abilities.

"Stray thought sticking in your head." The Cuckoo said and turned the radio on. The room filled up with calm music.

_Say nighty-night and kiss me_

_Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me_

_While I'm alone and blue as can be_

_Dream a little dream of me_

_(...)_

_Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you_

_Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you_

_But in your dreams whatever they be_

_Dream a little dream of me_

_Yes, dream a little dream of me _

Jessica clenched her fists.

"Since that night... again... I hear only about dreams... from Frost... from you... even from the bloody radio..."

"Jessie? What do you mean?" The boy asked surprised.

"I don't know what happened that damned night!" The girl shouted.

"I'm sorry, I must get some fresh air". She added and left the room.

"Dreams... I had a nightmare yesterday's night". Mark said.

"We also had..."

"...the same terrible dream..."

"...the previous night." Cuckoos announced.

"It is beginning now..."

"your lesson..."

"better hurry up..." They added.

When Hope was walking to the classroom, the school corridor was desolate. The girl noticed that Shan was entering Emma Frost's study room. She disappeared behind the cupboard so that the woman couldn't see her. She closed her eyes releasing the astral projection from her body. She felt strange spying on her teacher, but the intuition told her that meeting with Frost concerned Jessica. In the spectral form she got behind the window of Emma's room, she started looking around and listening closely. Scott Summers was also inside headmistress study. Emma noticed Hope's apparition, but she didn't react. Perhaps she wanted the girl to hear the entire conversation.

"As I said before, I don't know what caused that Jessica is in such a state. I am not able to break through the wall she built around her mind. However I am concerned about the phenomenon which happened last night". The woman said.

"Plague of nightmares?" Scott asked.

"Yes, everyone at the institute, the students or the X-Men members experienced terrible dreams yesterday".

"I also had them, about my uncle, Vietnam..." Shan said.

"I think that nightmares have something common to Jessica's condition. And I must take some appropriate steps in order to protect inhabitants of the Institute". Frost announced.

"What are you talking about! Why Jessica would be supposed to have some connection with these nightmares? Her abilities aren't acting in this way. What do you mean by appropriate steps..." Shan was alarmed very much.

"Jessica told me about her dream. It wasn't terrible, she dreamt of the meeting with some man. This dream was quite pleasant for her". Frost calmly explained her.

"And what does it mean? I don't understand..." Shan asked.

"It seems to me that somebody, some powerful telepath is using Jessica in order to get to us, weaken us, or even try to attack the X-Men in this way. We cannot take the risk, we must act!"

"You don't think about..." Shan didn't like what Emma had been supposed to say.

"Jessica must be isolated from the rest of inhabitants until we learn who or what is responsible for her state and what is aspiring to do. We have the appropriate chamber in basements!"

"I won't agree to it! You can't treat her this way! She is only 17, she went through a lot, her psyche is healing!" Vietnamese girl protested.

"You think that I am supposed to endanger all my students?" Emma asked.

"Scott, we cannot do it, talk some sense into her..." Shan tried to stop Frost from making the most difficult decision.

"I'm sorry Shan, I think that Emma is right".

"Ok Emma, but I don't intend to have a hand in it!" the Vietnamese shouted and left the study banging the door behind herself. Hope got scared. She came back to her body. She quickly walked away from the Frost' room in order not to meet Shan.

"I must warn Jessica". She thought.

Preview was walking in the vicinity of the school gates thinking about everything what happened to her so far. Events of last days as well as memories dug up during the conversation with Hope and later during meeting with the mysterious Sleepwalker were jumbling inside her head driving her crazy. The girl leaned against the wall and buried the head in the shadow of the nearby tree. She wanted to rest from everything. Impulsively she touched the body of her Discman. She didn't turn it on, because she knew that then again she would hear the melody about dreams. She didn't like this joke, whoever would be its author. Thinking about the implied meaning of these specific songs she sighed. At that very moment she felt someone's eyesight on herself and instinctively she looked behind the entrance gate. The boy who helped her during events in the shop was standing there. The girl came up to him. "Hi. Is everything all right?" He asked her.

"Yes, they examined me and they claim that there's nothing wrong with me. I 'm feeling much better today".

"Great." The stranger replied and smiled to her.

"And what, did you decide something after our meeting?" He added. Jessica was surprised at his question. She didn't know what he exactly had meant.

"After the meeting? Was I supposed to decide something? I don't remember, as a matter of fact I was terribly upset with what happened in the shop,... you know..."

"I'm talking about our night-time meeting". The boy announced and he looked deep into mutant girl's eyes. The girl was struck dumb. She pressed the hand to her Discman spontaneously. The further conversation wasn't needed, Jessica realized that what she experienced at night hadn't been her imagination. She could see it in his eyes, he was Sleepwalker, mysterious man who came to her in the dream. The face surrounded by long hair tousled in the wind appeared in front of her eyes.

"You are Sleepwalker..."

"Yes." The man replied putting the hand on her cheek.

"I thought that you had been only my dream..."

"I was, after all I told you I was your dream. I don't have a reason to lie to you. Did you think about my proposal?" The boy asked calmly.

"I have such a confusion in my head, everything what recently happened around me..."

"I know what you experienced through all these years. I am here to protect you, to rescue you from the fate waiting for you in the future." Jessica closed her eyes. The boy gently touched her hair.

"People have always hated something in you, you had been pointed at by them because you were different. In the place where you were born, in the place to which you moved with your mother..." The mysterious man began his monologue. Black-haired girl interrupted him.

"It was in the past, but now it's different. I'm not unhappy, I like this place, I have friends..."

"Don't you remember that exactly the same was with Michelle?" Sleepwalker asked her unusually awkwardly. Preview hearing name of her dead friend paled. She pushed the hand of the stranger away from her face. She walked apart from him.

"How dare you look into my memories..." The girl shouted.

"I am your dream, these are also my memories. I want only to show you that moments of bliss in your life last briefly and they are only an announcement of great sadness. It's legacy of Michelle's death". He touched her wrists. Jessica quickly broke free from him.

"Now it's the same... Frost is afraid of your state, she wants to isolate you from the rest of the school, for as long as it'll be necessary". The boy continued looking at Preview's beautiful brown eyes.

"Stop it!" The girl didn't want to listen to him any longer.

"I propose you the solution. Large power is lying dormant in you. You are able to create worlds. You are able to create the place where you will never be unhappy again. And I am a key to your power, I am a map leading to this places".

"Stop it!" The girl shouted louder. Sleepwalker embraced her and kissed her against her will. "Remember. It will be enough that you will say my name when you are ready".

He let black-haired mutant go and walked away behind the gate. Jessica ran after him as soon as she calmed down, immediately she started looking around. There was no clue of his whereabouts. She sat down on the earth leaning her back against the wall. At the same moment, Hope's astral projection turned up before her.

"Jessie! Listen to me! It's very important... Frost, Emma Frost wants you to... you cannot meet with her! Ach!" The apparition dissolved into thin air with the intense shout. The psychic projection of Emma Frost appeared in its place.

"Jessica. You must come to my study before sunset. It is very important. You cannot listen to the others for the good of all of us".

"Go to hell, all of you!" Jessica shouted.

"Give me at least a moment of peace! I have the right to it!" She added and came off toward the school.

Hope felt the telepathic attack on her astral projection very heavily. She butted against the wall of the corridor causing curiosity amongst her classmates. All books which she carried fell down on the floor. Mutant girl clutched her head.

"Frost, you witch..." She whined holding her temples. In the same time, young mutants started coming out of the nearby classroom. Mark and Megan were among them. They ran up to the girl as soon as they saw that something was wrong with her.

"Hope! What happened?" Megan asked.

"We'll lead you to the clinic." Both mutants suggested.

"No! Mark... Meg... help me to get out from here before some teacher sees me". The DJ picked the girl up. Megan gathered her textbooks.

"But what happened?" She asked.

"It's this bitch, Frost... she attacked me telepathically... I will explain everything to you later..."

"Hope, I have your books. Let us walk to the garden, you will feel better there". Pixie replied.

"Oh, my head... God... I'm going to be sick..."

Young mutants went to the school park. Hope lay down on the bench, where she was struggling with headache evoked by the attack of the telepath woman. After a dozen minutes other members of Paragons group except Jessica, who wanted to lie in a solitude in her room, joined them. When Trance recovered enough to talk freely, she explained her friends Jessica's situation and the conversation which Frost underwent with Shan and Cyclops. She wanted to help her friend and she insisted that the rest of Paragons also helped her.

"I'll talk with Shan. I'm sure that she'll give me an opinion. Besides if she doesn't help us, I'll ask her not to try to interrupt our attempt to help Jessica". Match announced.

"I have pal who has a holiday cottage in the forest, in the North. If it's necessary we'll try to hide Jessica somehow, after all now Cerebro cannot see her." Mark said.

" I'm with you. Jessica is my friend." Pixie added.

"Thank you". Hope replied with a smile on the face.

"And you Nicholas? Do you have something to add?" Ben asked WolfCub.

"I'm in this group! So I must be with you". The boy answered.

"Thanks".

"But it doesn't mean at all that I like her!"

"Don't forget about me". Some woman's voice sounded nearby. Everyone turned their head towards the school. Sarah Vale was standing there. She had the green sleeveless shirt and brown shorts on. Her long, black hair was blowing in the breeze. She could be mistaken for Jessica, the girls have very similar faces.

"Of course Sarah, we didn't forget!" Hope announced. The group had been talking in the garden for a long time. The sun slowly started to disappear behind the horizon and an evening came.

Jessica was laying on a bed keeping the crumpled photograph in her hand, the same one which she made together with Michelle. She was looking at the ceiling trying to think about nothing, but words of the mysterious boy sounded in her head all the time. She remembered the last conversation with Michelle and what had happened later, her first day at mutant's school and the meeting with Hope. She gently put the photograph back to the pillow and raised both hands above her head. She eyed her scars on wrists. She remembered pain of wounds which were on their place at one time. She closed her eyes. Two tears flowed down across her cheek. She took her player and turned the music on.

_The days were brighter_

_Gardens more blooming_

_The nights had more hope_

_In their silence the wild was calling_

_Wishes were whispering_

_The time was there_

_But without a meaning_

Not being able to not find the serene place for herself in her own mental treks, the girl got up from the bed. A flood of bad memories and feeling of the helplessness flooded her mind. She knew that her psychic endurance was on the border and the next attack of a depression grew closer. She didn't want her new friends and Frost, who regarded her as the threat, to see her in such a state. She quickly went to a window and she stuck her neck out of it. The slight wind shook her hair. She picked the packed rucksack up off the floor and turned the volume of music in her headphones up.

_Away, away, away in time_

_Every dream's a journey away_

_Away, away to a home, away from care_

_Everywhere's just a journey away_

"Sleepwalker." She whispered. A strong blast of wind struck her face. She closed her eyes.

Hope made up her mind that she would talk with Jessica about the plans of her group. Moreover she wanted to tell her secret once and for all. She had to know how the girl would react to it. She could not turn the door handle and enter her room, because she was afraid of her friend's reaction very much. She closed her eyes and remembered her morning conversation with Shan.

"I'm coming with it to you, because I know that only you can understand me. It's about Jessica, it seems to me... I'm not sure about it, because I don't understand my emotions... Jessie became for me something more than a friend. I feel it when I'm by her, I could look at her for hours, her face seems so pretty to me... I want to be by her, to help her with everything... I felt so happy yesterday, when she cuddled up to me... one time at the morning... when I could see her coming out of the shower, I felt some shivers inside myself, I was feeling warm inside... she has such a pretty body... ah Shan, I'm probably different..."

"Don't talk this way about yourself, Hope... you know that it's nothing bad..." The young Vietnamese answered calmly.

"I'm sorry. I forgot that you too... I'm sorry you". Hope felt embarrassed.

"Hope, I know that you're irritated. You don't have to apologize. Did you tell her, did you try to say about what you feel?"

"I'm afraid... therefore I'm coming with it to you. I'm afraid that she'll reject me, that our friendship will end...when she told me she had had very close friend, my imagination added something and I had high hopes... but I lacked the courage to tell her about myself..."

"Hope. You must tell her about it. Nobody knows how Jessie will react, but she certainly won't start hating you. You have no certainty that something'll happen between you two, but if you don't try, you won't know. You'll be sad being by her and then you can hurt her and yourself. Tell her about your emotions, remember that I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you. "

"Yes." Hope decided and entered her room with the sure steps. As it turned out, the place was empty. Unpleasant blasts of wind were flowing out of the opened window. The girl very quickly ran up to it and then she closed it with one move of the hand. When she examined the room, she knew that something was extraordinary there. She looked at the bed. There was a Discman which was still playing some melody on it. Trance noticed the lack of Jessica's rucksack. Irrational fear seized her.

_Away, away, away in time_

_Every dream's a journey away_

_Away, away to a home, away from care_

_Everywhere's just a journey away_

The girl the second time in that day used her abilities. She left the body in the form of the astral projection rising high above the schoolhouse. She noticed the car receding from under the gate. She flew up more closer. The boy who they had met in the shop was driving and Preview was sitting beside him. Hope wanted to speak to her, but something drew her back into the body. The terrified girl sat down on the floor and covered the face with hands.

_"For this gift of dream I must pay the price_

_with the loss of life's pleasures"_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter IV**

**Freaks II**

Hope was sleeping in her bed submerged in a deep dream which came to her when she had dealt with a swirl of thoughts that bothered her after disappearance of her roommate. The girl was dreaming that she was walking along the street in some small town. There was no one around her, as if this place was entirely abandoned or its inhabitants avoided contact with young mutant for some reasons. The reality surrounding her was grey and gloomy like on the old photograph faded from the passage of time. Hope stopped feeling anxiety growing in her. She looked around with a hesitation. She noticed the girl in a black sleeveless dress standing opposite her. The figure noiselessly swam up to her like the apparition and touched her cheek with the pale hand. Trance spotted wounds on her wrists. She was horrified making herself aware that Jessica Vale was the secret figure.

"Jessie? Is it you? What are you doing here ?" She wanted to learn more.

" I lived here together with Michelle. It is Salvation, everything began here." The gloomy specter answered not looking at its speaker. The unpleasant, cold wind appeared and everything started plunging into darkness.

Hope woke up. She was breathing very quickly and sweat covered her body. She sat down on the bed trying to calm down. She knew that she wouldn't be able to fall asleep until dawn.

The news about unexplained disappearance or escape of Jessica Vale quickly spread in the entire school. Hope and her friends tried with all their might to prevent this information from getting in the hands of their teachers, but with so many telepaths in the vicinity, keeping it secret wasn't possible. About the noon, one day after vanishing of mutant girl, Emma Frost called Shan to her study. The girl was irritated very much, she didn't like meeting with Emma and moreover the situation was not very pleasant for both of them. Women were sitting at Frost's desk, opposite to each other.

"Are you sure that Jessica's escape wasn't planned by her friends from the group?" Emma asked. "Why are asking me such a question? You'd better call everyone from Paragons here and look into their thoughts!" The Vietnamese girl answered her angrily.

"Shan, I am trying to gather together as many details concerning girl's disappearance as possible. It can be very important for her safety. Don't make it difficult for me".

"That's impossible. Hope learnt about your decision regarding Jessie. She eavesdropped on us by a chance yesterday. She wanted to warn Jessica and think out something together with her group, but she couldn't. She didn't manage to talk with her. She told me she could only see how Jessica was going away from the gate with the boy who she met in the shop during those events".

"Well in that case... now it is necessary to find out who this boy was and what caused that Jessica had escaped from here..." Shan got up. She was very dissatisfied with words which she heard.

"You're joking of course! You know very well that it was your decision to isolate her from the others! I told you that she had the terribly fragile psyche and nobody knew how she would react to such an idea! You knew about it very well!"

"Shan... I don't like your tone. I said that until we learnt what had happened with her abilities and who or what..." Emma became nervous also.

"You should be satisfied. Jessica isn't threat to your school anymore. You achieved what you had wanted!" Karma commented on the situation.

"Shan, I know that you are irritated but I won't tolerate the way you are talking to me any longer!"

"You don't have to!" Shan quickly headed towards the exit. Emma telepathically acted on her. She took the control over her and forced her to stop. Mutant girl quickly broke free from her mental hug. She turned to her with face expressing anger.

"Don't forget that I also have psychic powers and I was trained by the best". She left the room banging the door.

Everyone from Paragons team and Jessica's sister - Sarah gathered in the dormitory inside Hope's room. The owner of the room was sitting hunched on the bed of her missing room-mate firmly gripping her Discman. Megan was cuddling up to her trying to comfort her. Match was sitting on the second bed together with WolfCub. The DJ was standing at the window looking somewhere through blinds which were not entirely closed. Sarah leaned against the desk and smoothed Jessie and Michelle's photograph out. She mutely fixed her eyes on the image of the sister.

"Don't worry, Hope. Jessie will certainly come back. A lot happened recently, perhaps she simply wanted to take a break..." Pixie said.

"Jessica is able to be very responsible, she can take care of herself". Match announced.

"But why..., she told me one time that she was feeling well in our company, she couldn't be upset so much with Frost's decision." Hope said with a quiet voice. Sarah put the crumpled photograph back on the desk. She looked at all assembled people.

"If she's like our father, I'm not surprised at what she did. If he could separate us and leave our mum like a coward, she also could..." The girl expressed her opinion on her own sister.

"Don't talk this way about her! How can you know her? You weren't by her when she really needed a friend!" Hope exploded with an anger and shouted. She threw the Discman on the pillow and stood up opposite to Sarah. She started emanating the radiance of the astral form as if she geared up for the attack.

"I didn't want to irritate you. I didn't know that you cared about her so much". Sarah apologized. "Girls, don't quarrel!" Megan tried to calm her friends. Mark stopped looking out of the window, he joined in the conversation.

"I think that these nerves aren't necessary. I think that she couldn't stand what had happened around her lately and she decided to take a break from everything. A chance just presented itself in the form of this boy... I think that he'll bring her back today".

"No. She wouldn't do it". Nicholas spoke. Everyone looked at him surprised at the fact that he tried to defend Jessica.

"She wouldn't escape with a stranger... besides..." WolfCub tried to say something. He was ashamed by the eyes of all his friends.

"I'm not saying it from the sympathy for her, I simply met with that boy. All my senses ordered me to escape from him, his mere presence caused that every hair on my body bristled. I think that he somehow influenced her and if he has some plans towards her, they certainly aren't good ".

"It makes sense..." Megan replied.

"Jessie lost her abilities after the meeting with him, she had some strange dream..." She added.

"We must help her". Mark announced.

"How can we? We don't have a clue where he took her away". Hope said almost crying.

"We can guess... if he wants something from Jessie, he can try to earn her trust for example by taking her to some place which is important for her..." Match suggested.

"My only clue is this dream about which I told you. I met Jessica walking in this Salvation town. I've never been in there before. Jessica told me that she lived there with her mum and she also got to know Michelle there..." Hope added.

"I know where she'll want to go". Sarah saying this sentence showed everyone crumpled up photo from the Preview's desk.

"Did she talk to you about the past ?" She turned to Hope.

"Yes... she told me about Michelle, about this city Salvation in New Mexico."

"Then we have the real clue. Jessica has mental abilities, so the dream indeed could be some transmission which she sent to you. We'll catch some bus going to the west and perhaps WolfCub will find the track to her..." Sarah explained.

"I'll do it!" The boy replied. Hope wiped the tears away from her eyes. She gave a heartfelt smile.

"I thank you... everyone..."

"I could recommend something concerning the transport. I've got a friend in the city who can settle tickets for some train or the bus". Mark suggested solving a problem.

"I'll call him right away, I'll let you know as soon as I know something". The boy added.

"Then it's decided. Take only the most necessary things from your rooms. One small rucksack per person. And you Mark, go settle everything with this friend of yours. We're going to meet in the garden. We're setting off as soon as everyone are ready". Sarah announced. Match came up to her. He patted her on the shoulder.

"Only remember that I'm leading this group in the field." She winked at her.

Young mutants gathered in the garden of the institute as soon as they managed. Megan and Mark appeared first, Ben and Nicholas later and at the end separately Sarah and Hope. Each of them had a rucksack or a bag quickly filled up with packed things which could be useful to them on the road. DJ started the conversation.

"I called my friend, he said he would meet with me today and he'll give me tickets for everyone of us. We're supposed to meet with him in the town in two hours".

"Excellent, you've done great". Sarah replied.

"I heard that every group of young mutants went to the rescue expeditions for their friends". Ben announced.

"In that case we'll uphold the tradition". Mark added. Saying it he cuddled up to Megan.

"We're going to face a great adventure". He said to her.

"Your adventure ends here". Everyone heard the familiar voice. They noticed that Emma Frost and Scott Summers were standing in the vicinity of the gates. Shan was standing a few steps behind them.

"It's not fair!"

"You cannot do it to us!"

"Jessica is our friend".

"Shan, do something, please!" The group couldn't be defeated so easily. All its members didn't hide their displeasure at the sudden and unexpected decision of their teachers.

" X-Men will deal with Jessica's matter. You will stay at school". Frost informed everyone with a harsh voice.

"Shan..." Hope called imploringly looking at her advisor. The Vietnamese girl came out in a front of the group, lightly pushing Emma away.

"Go with me. You'll talk with me in a private." She informed her squad. Paragons listened to her and they followed her toward the school. Sarah stayed on the out-of-the-way place not knowing how she was supposed to behave in such a moment.

"You too, Sarah." Shan called her. The girl quickly ran up to her.

Young mutants went with their advisor to her study. The girl asked them to leave their things by the door and to come up to her desk. Everyone unwillingly agreed to do it.

"You must understand me. I know that Emma Frost acted very badly towards Jessica and she made a mistake regarding her as the threat to the school, but I agree with her in the matter of the order to stay in the school. At the moment, the intolerance towards mutants intensified. We don't know what dangers will wait for you on the road. Apart from that, it isn't obvious whom the boy with which Jessica escaped really was. If he indeed is dangerous... facing him you can endanger both Jessica and yourselves..."

"Shan, you told us so many times that New Mutants had cared about each other and always one of you was ready for sacrifice for the others." Match said.

"You also went to the rescue missions for your friends without the knowledge of teachers". Mark added.

"You're right boys, but the times were different. And moreover we also made a lot of mistakes and our behavior sometimes was simply stupid. If we had listened to our teachers perhaps Doug Ramsey would still be alive. I regret some of mine and my friends decisions very much".

"We don't want to expose ourselves to danger, we'll be careful". Megan announced.

"We only want to find Jessie, talk with her and get her back to the school". Hope said.

"We know where she probably went". Sarah informed.

"My friend already settled tickets for us, we can't waste them". Mark added.

"If this guy is dangerous, the X-Men presence will only irritate him. And then Preview will suffer harm because of them". WolfCub replied. Ben came closer to Shan. He looked in her deep eyes.

"I know that you're worrying about us because you lost so many friends, but think also how many you rescued thanks to the fact that you didn't hesitate to act against bans of teachers. After all New Mutants rescued you also, right? If then they had listened to Xavier, you would still be a victim of the Shadow King..."

Irritation appeared in Shan's eyes. The woman staggered a little, she sat down on the chair, and after a moment she corrected her hair. When she raised her eyes, she saw six pairs of eyes asking her for the permission to leave the Institute, six young people ready to rescue her friend.

"Frost will never let you do it. There's a lot of young mutants whose death she has on her conscience. She wouldn't experience another loss without losing mental health. I cannot stand up for you". Shan calmly announced everything to her group.

"I'll go talk with her". Ben said smiling to his companions.

When Paragons left the study of their advisor, Match asked Mark to stay with him a little longer and talk. The boy guessed what the leader of his group had meant.

"I'll go and try to convince Emma Frost to let us look for Jessica, but I don't believe I'll achieve something. Therefore you must act Mark, this friend of yours has the car, yes?"

"Yes, he has the jeep but what's this got to do with our problem?"

"You must call him and tell him to come for us to the school. As soon as possible. Tell everyone from the group to wait for him under the gate to the school".

"Do you want to escape? Do you think that it'll come off? Optimist". Mark replied not believing in the success of his friend's plan.

"If Jessica managed to escape, we'll also can. I'll try talk with Frost as long as possible. good luck, Mark". Ben announced.

"For you also". DJ answered and ran somewhere along the school corridor.

Twenty minutes passed. Match was standing in front of the door leading to Emma Frost's study. He was irritated very much and the flame surrounding his head had changed its intensity every couple of minutes. The boy stretched the hand out in order to knock to the office several times, but something was stopping him. At last, Emma Frost opened the door sensing him telepathically. she asked him to come inside immediately. The mutant entered the room with a hesitation, looking all around himself. He sat down by the desk of the woman.

"I am guessing what do you want to talk with me about, Benjamin. I can only assure you that we will make every effort to find your friend".

"I know it, but it's very important for us... it'd be perfect both for us and for Jessica... so that we track her down alone". Ben tried to express his request. Frost leaned against the chair.

"You know well that it is impossible. I cannot let my students expose themselves to dangers. The role of this school have been changed a lot time ago. We don't teach new generations of X-Men here, but ordinary mutants which are supposed to live in the society in the future". The woman explained the situation to the boy.

"Exactly, Miss Frost. Therefore nobody of us is trying to become the New X-Man. Nobody of us is thinking of going right in the middle of fight with supper villains. We only want to go on the trip and get our friend back to the school". Ben presented his arguments.

"I don't want to repeat myself, Benjamin. It has been decided..."

"Even when we're on our way, the contact with us will be possible, our every move can be tracked by Cerebra. If something happened, we'd call the aid from the School, we'll be doing nothing on our own. Sarah will be with us, she thinks she know where Jessica went with this man..." Frost got up. She looked at the window.

"No way! You will go nowhere! Don't try to come to me again I'm not going to change my mind. And now go away from here because I must call a meeting in the matter of Jessica's disappearing". Ben was very dissatisfied by the conversation with his teacher. He was worried whether the transport settled by Mark would arrive up to the school quickly enough and whether his group will manage to leave walls of the school unnoticeably. The boy came up to one of windows and he stood up by it letting his thoughts wander. After a few minutes Hope appeared by him.

"Ben, here you are! I searched for you everywhere! This friend of Mark... he's already by the gate." Hearing the words of brown haired girl Match was really happy.

"I'm coming!" He shouted and headed in the direction of stairs leading to lower levels. He and Trance soon reached up to one of gates to the institute. It turned out that green jeep of DJ's friend was parked there and all young mutants were putting their quickly packed rucksacks to it. Match said hello to Mark's acquaintance who was a long-haired man in the sunglasses and then he took the place in his car together with the rest of friends. The driver was taciturn, absent with thoughts, every couple of minutes he had looked in the direction of Xavier's institute.

"What are you waiting for? We must move!" Mark tell him to hurry up.

"Yes, yes..." The man answered him all the time looking at windows of the school. At the same time Emma Frost was standing at the window in her study watching the entire incident with the participation of the Paragons group. She smiled. As it turned out she sent the telepathic message to Mark's friend who was sitting behind the steering wheel of the jeep.

"Did you order this train which we arranged?"

"Exactly that one. Everyone should be satisfied". The long-haired boy replied in his thoughts.

"The little girl with black hair is running along the street paved with stones. Strange, distorted houses, full of people grow around her, they are looking down on her. The girl is afraid of them, she knows that she isn't welcome here and everyone wants to get rid of her. The gang of children is breaking from buildings like the pack of feral dogs and it is starting to chase her. Stones are flying toward the girl. The little one is stumbling, she is falling down on the pavement. People are close and she is feeling helpless. Suddenly somebody is taking her by the hand. It turns out that it is the same girl dressed in the beautiful, black dress. "Go with me, I'll show you the road to the beautiful, better place. Don't be afraid." The little girl is going after stranger holding her by the hand. The space around her is being turned into meadow full of colorful flowers. The girl is really happy."

Jessica Vale woke up from her dream.

The girl turned her head towards the windowpane. She noticed with still sleepy eyes, that the entire landscape, the road and forests surrounding it were moving with respect to her. After a moment she realized that she was in a car and the boy, who she got to know a few days ago, was sitting by her. Getting out of the embraces of Morpheus she slowly reminded herself yesterday's events which caused that she had escaped from the institute. She rubbed her eyes and stretch her arms a little bit.

"Welcome to the waking world. How was your journey through the dreaming?" The black-haired stranger asked her.

"It was OK... but I'm achy all over my body, I'm not used to sleeping in the car". The girl answered quite unenthusiastically. She wasn't convinced if intentions of her companion were good and she not entirely understood what had persuaded her to escape with him and trust him. Looking through the pane, she tried to correct her hair.

"Damn, what a hole... fields, forest in the distance, no living soul here..."

"You should feel at home. You like the wildlife". Her companion of travel announced.

"Yeah... but how can you know so much about me?..."

"I told before you that..."

"Yes, yes I know... you are my dream, I've heard it several times before". The girl answered. Black haired boy smiled. Mutant girl leaned against the chair and closed her eyes. She still didn't know which one of all the things happening around her were real and what was an illusion and a dream. All the time her mind was in a strange state, kind of between a sleep and complete awakening, which an ordinary human is experiencing usually only twice per twenty-four hours through a short time. The girl was in it already a dozen hours.

"Where are we going?" She asked.

"Where you wanted to go. To the New Mexico. To Salvation, where your mum lives".

"Did I really want to go there? When did I tell you? Somehow I cannot recall it". The girl was surprised, but she didn't become nervous.

"Last night. We talked about it all the time before you fell asleep".

"Really?" Jessica was surprised very much. She could not remember any words from that conversation. The entire situation seemed more and more suspicious to her. Simultaneously the curiosity about the true identity and intentions of her companion ordered her to participate in his game a little longer.

"Will we be able to stop somewhere in the near future?" She asked again.

"You want to stretch legs, Jessica?"

"Yes... The car is too small. I really have to stretch my legs..."

The train which Emma Frost rented for her students with the help of Mark's friend was rushing along the railway track through remote, desert areas. Young mutants got places in the exclusive car which only people like White Queen of the hellfire club could afford. Seats were clean and comfortable, the floor was covered with a soft carpet. Inside the car, employees of railways serving meals were bustling about providing passengers the maximum possible comfort of the travel. The opinions about the train was very diverse among Paragons group. Each of its members prepared for the other kind of the travel and some of them had trouble with the adjustment to such high standards. Nobody from them was able to predict that Mark's friend was so influential man and nobody discovered what actually had been hidden behind his generosity and who really paid for their tickets. Before entering the train, DJ wanted to question him about all details, but his long-haired friend disappeared from the station leaving only surprised group of young mutants behind himself.

"Everything here is gleaming from the cleanness, but these people...look at their faces, how they are looking at all of us. For most of them we probably look like monkeys on the party for richest people". Mark said.

"Don't complain. Be pleased that we managed to set off in the pursuit of Jessica. Frost must be really mad at us now. I can see her face now". WolfCub replied.

"It's your merit and your friend's also!" Ben ended his statement.

"I still don't understand how could he get these tickets for us so miraculously ". DJ was wondering.

"Don't complain, all of you. We got more than we needed. We can't be sure if we get Jessie back, or if we even meet her..." Sarah announced.

"How can you talk like this! You told us earlier that you were sure that she went to this Salvation town!" Hope became nervous. She quickly rose from her armchair.

"I didn't say that I was sure, I said that I could guess where she was. And it's the difference. Besides it's you who dreamt about her in this small town!" Sarah defended herself.

"It's your sister..."

"Girls, don't quarrel!" Ben stopped the verbal clash of mutant girls.

"Listen... this woman... it gives me a shivers when I'm looking at her." Megan whispered and discreetly pointed at the lady sitting on the second end of the car. The superannuated madam with hair dyed blonde and strong make-up was sitting there. She had a hat with peacock feathers on her head and white shawl around her neck. She had been peeking at mutants every couple of minutes and her look was overfilled with greater and greater disgust. The woman called one of the employees of the train, she whispered to him something, obviously arguing with him. After a moment, she gave him something small. The man nodded his head and he peeled off from her. He came up to young mutants. He was sweaty and undoubtedly very upset with something.

"I'm very sorry, but you will have to change the car on the next station, I'm really sorry..."

"Why?" Sarah was surprised.

"Your company is not tolerated by Mrs. Cribs, I'm sorry... you must understand, this person is very important for us and we must..."

"But we have the tickets bought for the entire travel!" Nicholas shouted.

"Therefore you'll be continuing the travel, but try to understand..."

"Ok". Ben calmed WolfCub signaling to him to sat down.

"Oh, we'll do what he wants. I don't want this misunderstanding to turn into something more." Match announced. The flame danced around his hand.

"I thank you for the understanding... prepare your luggage..." After these words the employee left the group. Megan rested the head on Mark's shoulder.

"My premonitions came true again. Sometimes I'm fed up with people and their prejudice..."

"Magneto was right, don't you think?" DJ answered looking at the far distance out of the window of the train.

On the next station the group was moved to the other train. The employee assured everyone that travel expenses would be returned to them because of the downgrade of the travel's comfort. The bad luck of the group caused that all cars in the new vehicle were entirely filled by people and the only vacancy the man managed to find in the entire train was in the freight car in which the livestock was being transported. Mutants put their knapsacks on the floor and sat down next to each other on the hay lying everywhere around, simultaneously leaning against the wooden fence behind which animals were being kept.

"How they must mock us there, I can see them saying: finally in the right place!" WolfCub expresing his opinion was more downcast than irritated.

"At least nobody will look at us with a disgust here. To tell the truth, I'm pleased that it happened this way. I prefer the company of pigs than those people". Mark announced stroking the hog's snout, which looked from behind the homestead. Hope was sitting hunched in the corner being silent all the time. Pixie watched her for a moment. She decided to make the move.

"Cheer up, Hope". She said to her. She left her boy and sat down by the friend.

"You worry about her, am I right? We all worry about her." She asked looking at the eyes of Trance.

"That's not the point. I'm starting to doubt the sense of our trip. We have a trouble at its very beginning, we must act the way others are ordering us all the time. If we continue to act this way, we'll never find Jessica. Did we move at least one step closer to her ? Can Nicholas smell her when we're sitting on the train?" Hope didn't hide dissatisfaction and disappointment from the expedition. Boy looking at her denied shrugging his shoulders.

"I cannot look for her with my astral projection as well. Frost would locate us with an ease, she is observing us all the time using Cerebra..." Suddenly, the goat standing behind Hope took the face out of the fence and grabbed the girl by her hair.

"Hey! What are you thinking!" The frightened mutant girl shouted.

"She probably got to like you." Megan joked. The group burst out laughing. Sarah joined the conversation.

"Exactly, Hope... If I could use my abilities now, the train would be ours". She announced quietly stopping a burst of joy in the group.

"Don't you think that we must change our tactics and start being more active, if we want to reach anything?" She added. The girl directed these words at everyone, but she said them looking at Match, the leader of the group. The boy fell into a pensive mood, he turned his head away not wanting to answer and provoke her black haired friend reaction. The silence was hovering over the entire group. Network went to the other end of the car, because she spotted something in the darkness. Smiling, She came up to the wooden fence from behind which the brown head of the horse loomed into the view. The girl stroked him and she cuddled up to him gently. Hope got up off the floor having shaken off from the hay with a fast move of the hand and came up to the friend. She patted the horse on the head.

"Do you like horses, Sarah?" Hope asked.

"Yeas... a bit strange for a girl having a bond with machines ?"

"Why strange?... I like them too very much. I remember being very close to one in the past". Ben came up to mutant girls busy with conversation. He touched the shoulder of Sarah forcing her to turn around and face him.

"We'll take the case into our own hands. We'll do what we find is necessary!" He said without a note of hesitation, looking at brown eyes of the black-haired girl. Sarah smiled nonchalantly.

"I like you now. Let us walk to the group".

She pushed Match and Hope in the direction of the remaining Paragons.

"Listen all of you! We'll leave this train on the nearest station and we'll start be more active irrespective of what Frost will do. If it's necessary we'll oppose her. Does somebody have something against it?"

"I'm answering most likely on behalf of everyone: of course, no!" Mark replied hugging Megan. A goat pushed its face between heads of him and the girl's bleating loudly. Everyone laughed.

Much earlier, before the unpleasant woman using her influence ordered to remove the group of mutants from the luxury car, Sleepwalker was leaning against his car being lost in a maze of thoughts somewhere on a remote desert-like place. In his imagination, he was standing on a high, steep rock washed by waves of a storm-tossed sea. A strong, cold wind was moving clouds as dark as ink all over the sky and shaking dark hair of the man. A girl in a black dress, even darker than vapors moving all over the sky came up to him. Her face was covered by the shadow and the darkness prevailing around. The man rested his hands on her shoulders.

"How much longer do I have to wait?" She asked him.

"Be patient, everything is according to our plans. You will be free soon". He smiled ominously calming his woman.

"And I will expand my influences". He added with satisfaction noticeable in the voice.

In the same moment Jessica was walking on the desert raising clouds of dry dust with every step. She walked away from the mysterious boy and his car in hope of regaining cleanness of thoughts and the ability to rational thinking unrestricted by anything. Unfortunately, in spite of a dozen minutes of looking at the wilderness stretching out until the horizon, strange feeling being on the border of a reality and a dream didn't leave her. She also didn't remember the conversation which she had with the stranger at the night, but she already knew or perhaps really believed she had wanted to be in a home of her mother. She decided to come back to the car.

"Sleepwalker! Sleepwalker!" The black haired man being in his illusions, heard the voice calling him from outside the black clouds. He opened his eyes and realized that he was again in the real world. Jessica was standing opposite to him. She was happier than before.

"Ready for the way forward?" He asked.

"Yes, let us move!" The black-haired girl announced. The boy let her into the car and she sat down on the chair.

"When will you finally tell me something more about yourself? You seem to know about me everything but I know nothing about you..." She asked.

"Be patient". He replied and ordered her to fasten the seat belts.

Young mutants were standing by the road leading deep into the country, to the desert burnt by the summer's heat. The sun was already high over the horizon, heat was making the life of mutants a misery. After the short rest and a conversation on a railway station the group decided that they would drive towards the Salvation town by hitch-hiking. They hoped that there was somebody who was willing to help the group of young mutants lost in the heart of a large country in a group of many travelers crossing the desert. The team tried to make some more precise plan of operation.

"We have to decide now who will try to stop a car". Mark announced.

"Of course it must be a girl!" He added.

"I want to know why..." Megan asked maliciously.

"I propose Sarah as volunteer". DJ turned to the girl. He came up to her. He held her hair in his hand and put them through his fingers. Pixie was looking at him filling with jealousy.

"You're perfect. Nobody will resist the charm of a beautiful woman with raven-black hair". Mark hugged her gently.

"Okay, I'll do it. Hold my knapsack". Network gave her belongings to the boy. She came up to the wayside. She noticed that some green mini-autobus was approaching. She corrected her hair. A couple of tourists were sitting in the car: fat man in glasses and his wife in a solar cap. Both of them were dressed in flowery shirts.

"Look honey! Some girl needs our help! I'll stop, we'll give her a lift!" Delighted fat driver announced.

"Don't you dare! Speed up! Pretend that you couldn't see her!" His wife very quickly chilled his intentions. The car receded from Network with a high speed. A blast of wind moved her hair.

"Why didn't you let me stop, honey?" An embittered man asked.

"I'll teach you not to look around for young girls, you pervert! Wait until we get back home!" The wife hailed him. Meanwhile saddened Sarah came back to the roadside.

"The next one should approach soon..." Mark tried to impel her to return. The girl patted Hope on the shoulder.

"Now it's your turn. Good luck". Trance persuaded by her friend came out to the road. Next vehicle approached her. His driver, a bearded man slowed down and stopped his car after a moment. Pregnant blonde woman was sitting by him.

"Hi! Are you setting out on a journey? Do you want me to give you a lift?" Bearded man asked. "Yes! Thank you!" The girl was glad.

"Jump into the backseat!" The stranger ordered her gladly.

"But... there are a few friends with me..." Paragons emerged from behind thickets. Terrified woman screamed seeing WolfCub.

"Mutants? " The bearded man was surprised.

"Yes... we are mutants, all of us". Hope answered. Hearing her answer, the bearded man stepped on the gas pedal in order to drive away from the group of young people as soon as possible. Hope touched the hand of his wife. She pushed her away strongly.

"Don't touch me! I'll give birth to the monster because of you!"

"Leave my wife alone!" The bearded man screamed and spat on the girl. His car quickly disappeared behind a bend of the road. Mark came up to Hope. He handed her a paper tissue.

"Wipe this vileness off the shirt".

"What a son of a bitch". Sarah said looking in the direction of the road's bend.

"Our daily bread". Ben commented on the event.

"Third time lucky". Megan said being evidently tired and discouraged with the entire circumstances. "Now, it's my turn". She added.

Girl was standing by the route slowly moving her wings. The van, looking like a total junk approached her. A few long-haired men, looking like the handful of superannuated hippies were sitting inside it. They clearly seemed to be under the influence of drugs. One of them noticed Megan.

"Look, Fairy is standing there. Watch how her wings are shimmering in the sun". Said one of them.

"Fairy? What are you talking about?" Asked the other.

"There, see!"

"Oh fuck! What did you give us for sniffing! I told you that..."

"I didn't know that it was so strong, fuck!" The vehicle quickly receded from the girl. Megan lowered head feeling totally depressed.

"Next round for Sarah?" Mark asked.

"Maybe we can try something?" Ben suggested.

"You'll go first Mark, you don't have the changed appearance. Perhaps you'll manage".

"No! I'll go!" Nicholas interrupted them.

"You?, but you are..."

"Entirely covered with hair. I know about it. But we'd better show ourselves the way we're truly. We don't want Hope's experience to repeat itself over and over again".

"You're right, really. Let's try!" Match announced pleased with the idea of his friend. WolfCub returned to the road and waited for the next car driving up. It turned out to be quite big, dilapidated jeep. The vehicle stopped to the surprise of everyone assembled. A young man with a hat on the head leaned out from inside of a car. He eyed the young mutant up and down.

"Hi! Are you really one of them... of them, mutants?"

"Yeah..." Nicholas replied unwillingly. His heart started beating more quickly. The organism prepared for him two solutions: the fight or the escape.

"Super! I'm Joe!" The man extended a hand to the boy.

"Are you going somewhere?" He asked.

"Yeah, actually I'm... with friends..." The rest of Paragons came up to the car. Joe was looking at them for the longer moment. He examined the body and wings of Megan in great detail.

"What are you waiting for! Jump! Everyone'll fit!" He ordered enthusiastically. The group was glad from first success of that day.

"Blimey! Six mutants! And such chicks among them! Mum won't believe when I tell her". The group quickly took the place in the Joe's car. Match and Mark sat down by him and the rest of young mutants took place on the back seats.

"Where are you going from?" Joe asked.

"From Xavier's Institute". Mark answered.

"From Xavier's? The same as the X-Men's? Damn, I'm lucky! Would you mind visiting my family on the way? They'll go crazy when they see you".

"Of course not, but we're in a hurry. We're searching for our friend". Ben replied.

"If everyone agrees..." Mark informed looking back.

"We agree, we agree... a rest and a shower will be useful to us." Hope announced.

"In that case, it's decided!" Joe turned up the sound from the radio and _"far far away with my head up in the clouds..."_ sounded inside the car.

Joe very quickly made friends with his new acquaintances. Paragons introduced to him what kind of abilities and physical changes they had in details. He decided to tell them about his family.

"We've been interested in everything what is unusual and strange especially mutants, freaks for ages. The grandmother was taking my mum to the carnivals showing her the wonders of the nature. Later, when the first X-Men appeared, mum went crazy about them. When she got married, she bought the land in the desert. The place was exposed to radiation because they conducted nuclear explosions there, at one time. She wanted to give birth to children - mutants there. Unfortunately she failed. We all, I and my brothers and sister as well as their children... we're ordinary Homo Sapiens, there is nothing in us close to Superior".

"Perhaps you're happier than it seems to you." Sarah replied.

"Nobody spat on you because of who you are..." Hope added.

"A few days ago I fought with one little shit. He was playing in our bar offending mutant girl working there all the time. The girl, she doesn't have some powers... only her pupils look like snake's... but he... he almost beaten her, when she served him the beer. He shouted that because she's looking at him, he would have monsters instead of children and other gibberish".

"And didn't he have a beard?" Ben asked with a smile.

"He had..."

"It's the same prat who span on Hope today.." Joe turned his head in the direction of the girl. He looked at her eyes.

"In that case if I see him next time he'll be sorry."

After an hour of travel Joe's car turned from the main motorway to the ground road stretching out deep into desert vacated by all known civilization.

"We'll approaching my mum, darlings! Prepare!" The driver informed everyone.

"Is your house really here? I can see no city?" Ben was surprised.

" Desert all around, no living thing as far as eyes can see..." Sarah added.

"You wanted what? After all I said that nuclear bomb tests were conducted on these areas, at one time. Would you like to see the crowd of tourists here?" Joe replied laughing at himself. The team noticed in the distance the place about which their colleague told them a moment ago. On the very centre of the desert, two big trailers, playing the role of flats for Joe's family were standing silently. There were many different chairs, tables and other furniture bitten by the teeth of the time all around them. The entire estate was separated from the rest of the wilderness with a wooden fence. Near the house three of small children were playing with their dog. Joe parked the car by the enclosure. He got off and asked mutants to wait in the inside of the car.

"I'll give a surprise to mum".

He went close to his house. Children came running to say hello and made a lot of noise. Very fat woman left one of trailers balancing her body with each step.

"Who I can see, Joe came back from the expedition!" She screamed with squawking voice.

"You're right, mother! And you won't believe what present I brought you!"

"It's interesting what can still surprise me?" Fat lady asked.

"Hey! Everyone come here!" He cried out to his new friends. After a moment a six of young mutants carrying their luggage came out from behind the fence.

"Oh my! These are mutants!" The woman howled with a surprise.

"They came from the Xavier's, mum!"

"Children! Come here! Quickly!" She started calling all occupants of her makeshift homestead. Soon a three of children came running to the mother with their dog and young girl with short, curly, black hair dressed in denim shorts and the shirt emerged from the second trailer. Joe started showing his family. "It's my mum about whom I told you before. It's Mike, my younger brother..." He showed 12 years old boy.

"My younger sister Molly..." He pointed at the girl.

"And children of my older brother - Scotty and Jean." He pointed at the pair of small kids.

"Mum: get to know Ben, Mark, Hope, Sarah, Megan and Nicholas". Joe introduced his new acquaintances to the family.

Sleepwalker stopped the car in a small town in the car park of some motel. He was looking at Jessica. He noticed that the girl had been exhausted with the travel very much and she was fighting with a coming sleep with a lot of effort. He stroked her head.

"Are you worn out ? He asked.

"Totally exhausted... I'm dreaming of a long, hot shower".

"I wouldn't advise this in such a hole... it is most probably spoiled and dripping from rust and mushrooms". He announced showing the neon light of the motel in which the letters "L" and "T" burnt themselves out. The girl laughed. They both left the car and headed in the direction of the building. The boy embraced Jessica once again. He snuggled his face to her face. Black-haired moved away from him immediately.

"Don't do it. I think that I know you centuries, but actually we just met. I don't want it... I don't know why I wanted to go to the Salvation, why I left the school. Don't cause that it's even more difficult for me".

"I'm your dream, remember about it... you wanted me some time ago. You wanted me, when you lost Michelle, don't you remember it?"

"I don't know what are you talking about..." Sleepwalker grabbed her left hand. He touched the her wrist with the mouth. Later he did it to the girl's second hand. The girl looked at her palms. Scars entirely disappeared.

"What did you do?" She asked surprised.

"It's simple, I showed you that you had accepted the world to which I am leading you". Jessie's eyesight became dull. Black-haired man embraced her and kissed. The girl didn't have a will strong enough to defend herself against his power again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter V**

**Night Conversations**

The consecutive day passed for the group of mutants on informal conversations with Joe, his obese mother and his younger siblings. After so many failures and unpleasantness which they experienced through a few last days, a possibility of being with such nice people, full of warmth for mutants, was a pleasant surprise even if their fascination for the homo superior seemed to exceed acceptable limits. The fat mother ordered to bring all stools and chairs which she had in her desert "house". She knew that the group was most probably worn out, hungry and thirsty after the long journey. Molly decided to make the tea for everyone and to bring something to eat. Everyone sat down on anything they could and the fat woman settled on two remaining stools. Small Scott and Jean examined Megan's colorful wings with a great attention. Girl seeing that they were a subject of large interest, started moving them slowly and smoothly. Children were even more glad. Mike sat down between Mark and Ben. All the time, he was watching Match's head enveloped with a bright flame.

"Is this flame really burning? Aren't you set all things around on fire?" They interested boy asked.

"It's burning all the time... I'm not setting things on fire, I'm already able to control its intensity." Match calmly explained.

"And what other abilities you have?" Mike didn't stop questioning.

"Could you throw something?" Ben suggested. The boy picked the piece of wood up from the earth, and then he hurled it farthest he was able. The fiery mutant stretched his arm in the direction of the stick and launched the stream of fire from them. Wood was completely burnt in the air and right after this, it fell down on the sandy ground of the desert.

"For example something like this". Ben announced satisfied.

"Ah! Wonderful! Super!" Mike didn't hide his excitement.

"Look at my show". Mark spoke to him. He played some disco melody on his player. After a moment bright flares looking like New Year's fireworks flashed above the desert.

"Super! Will you demonstrate something more?" The boy was delighted with his new acquaintances. Molly sat down by WolfCub handing the mug with a tea to him. The young mutant thanked, all the time looking at DJ's flashes. The girl had been watching his face covered with hair for the longer moment. She touched his shoulder and then she passed the hand several times over the soft fur. "Smooth... the real fur..." She announced smiling to the boy.

"Of course, of course it's that real..." Nicholas replied.

"You know, looking at the television I always thought that Wolverine was the most hairy..."

"I'm ahead of him in it... as a matter of fact I'm also a better tracker. My senses are more sensitive than his!" WolfCub started boasting.

"Really?"

"Maybe because he blunted them by smoking cigarettes". Molly burst out laughing. She was satisfied from the conversation with new friends. Joe was sitting by girls and his obese mother. Hope and Megan were talking with children fascinated with Pixie's wings. Joe leaned over Sarah. He looked from under his hat at her pretty, brown eyes.

"Listen... perhaps now you'll tell me what abilities you have? She was silent through the entire trip, you know mum?" He said the last sentence looking at his fat mother.

"Look..." Network whispered turning away from the man. Lights in his car went on and a moment later a horn sounded and an engine started running on its own.

"Technokinesis... I think it's called..." She added. Everyone looked in the direction of the vehicle with a great surprise.

"Calm down, calm down! Sarah showed us her super powers!" Joe calmed them removing his hat from the head. The fat woman sat more comfortably on stools.

"Listen! Since you want to stay at the night with us, would you mind the bonfire? We would talk with ourselves, you would rest..."

"Great idea." Megan replied.

" We want it!" Mark added.

"The trouble is... we have no wood... there is nothing to set on fire." Joe announced. Hearing proposal of her mother Molly got up and came up to the brother.

"I can go to the town." She suggested her help.

"It's probably a good idea." Joe replied.

"But you want to sweat over it alone?" He added.

"No..." The girl turned to WolfCub.

"Nick? Wouldn't you like to go with me?" She asked.

"Yeah, I don't know... it depends what Match will say..." The mutant was a bit confused with proposal of black-haired girl.

"He would like to go, certainly!" Ben announced. Disconcerted Nick looked to him and later at the girl.

"Super! Come with me Nick, the car is behind the trailer!"

Molly together with her new friend walked away from the others. Joe came up to the mother.

"Yeah, yeah... the way she looked at him... probably something will result from it..."

"I hope you're right , I hope you're right..."

A deep night was ruling over a horizon. Children was sitting close to Megan and Mark all the time, watching color patterns on wings of the girl and light displays of her boyfriend. Hope didn't feel best, therefore the mother led her to the trailer where the girl could calmly lie down and rest. Ben and Sarah walked away to the desert to talk about further plans of searching Jessica and just to walk together. The girl was walking a few steps before Match and kicking stones lying everywhere she was arousing clouds of sand around herself.

"Today you showed that you're really suitable for commanding the group". She started the conversation.

"Do you think...?" The boy asked.

"Yes, when I met you it seemed to me, that our "rescue mission" for my sister will fail exactly because of you".

"Because of me? Why did you think so?"

"I thought that you're a person who is doing the things others order him to do. You know, Rahne, Shan, Emma Frost... but now I can see that I was wrong. You made a decision alone, you're responsible for your group... I like it..."

"You know Sarah, we don't know what this decision will bring to us. At any time the X-Men can come here in their airplane and take us back to the school". Match shared his anxieties with the friend.

"And will you give up without a fight?" Network asked him defiantly.

"Of course no..." self-satisfied boy looked behind himself. He noticed, that talking with Sarah, he walked away from the Joe's house.

"Listen, perhaps we'd better come back to them? They may need us at the preparations for the bonfire".

"They surely need you, Ben". Sarah laughed hitting the friend in the shoulder.

"You're right..." Both mutants moved in the direction of camping trailers.

Molly and Nicholas approached the nearest small town which was a godforsaken hole actually put in the heart of the desert. During the travel, Nick told his friend about days spent at Xavier's institute, his friends and teachers which she so far knew only from the television. Molly listened to his history with a great interest. The car which she was driving appeared on the main and at the same time the only road of the small town on which a few people - regular customers of nearby premises were walking. The girl smiled to the sheriff standing by one houses and flirting with a very ugly, local woman. She turned behind a gas station, stopping the car in a little car park placed in the larger distance from densely populated places like gas station and the nearby bar.

"I would prefer that you wait here. You know, some people can react badly to your view. You know what people are in small towns." The girl announced her request feeling embarrassment.

"Ok,... I understand Molly".

"I'm sorry, really. I'll signal to you when I'm coming back and there is no nobody in the vicinity".

Black-haired girl closed the door of the car and went to the nearby shop. Wolfcub not being very satisfied with the situation in which he found himself tried to kill the time passing slowly. He stuck the head out of the window, he was listening closely, he was inhaling the air to his nostrils, he was watching everything around. He was hoping that perhaps he would come across some track of Jessica's past presence in this place. He could hear the conversation reaching his ears from the bar merged with the music flowing from the broken jukebox, someone's shouts at the petrol station, barking of the dog driving away some desert animals which were moved too close to human settlements. He smelt fragrances of beer and sweat coming from the inn and the perfume of the lady talking to the sheriff. At one point something alarmed him very much. He smelt the familiar smell which as he remember was associated with something bad. After a moment he noticed that a bearded man who earlier had spat on Hope on the motorway entered the bar. The boy became nervous very much. He decided to act on his own and punish the man. He left the car looking all around. Having noticed the opened window to the bar's toilet, he entered the interior of the building through it. There was nobody in the toilet, therefore WolfCub could look through the slit in the door at the centre of the pub without problems. He noticed the bearded man. Bad luck or maybe happiness wanted, that the man was walking to the bathroom. Nick quickly jumped to the cabin. He hid himself in the darkness in the vicinity of ceiling. Bearded man entered the same cabin in which the young mutant hid itself. He pulled trousers off and sat down on the toilet bowl. In the same moment WolfCub let out a growl. The man got scared and instinctively looked above himself noticing the boy hidden in the shadow. His hair was bristled up, his eyes were shining in a darkness. The mutant firmly caught hold on the cabin with legs and reached for the the bearded man with a sudden move. He lifted him up, then looked at his face all the time whirring. The man was frightened, he could not say a single one word.

"Today you did something nasty. You spat on the girl, my friend! You thought that you would get away with it? Absolutely not... feel yourself how she felt then! Maybe it was this way?" Nick threw the horrified guy. The bearded man ended up with the head inside a toilet bowl. The young mutant quickly slipped out of the opened window.

Molly was coming back to the car carrying bought piece of woods. She looked at the direction of the vehicle in order to call the friend. Three musclemen barred her way. They were ugly, they had chubby faces, wide necks and shaven off bald heads. They looked at the girl with eyes full of sense of victory. "Molly, Molly, Molly... alone in such a dangerous place... perhaps you need the protection?" One of them asked, the one with the most repulsive face.

"Leave me alone. I don't have time. And apart from that I'm not alone... Nick! Nick! Come here!" "Ha, ha! It's interesting what you imagined this time, princess from the desert!" The muscleman asked.

"Nick!" Molly looked around nervously. At the same moment WolfCub popped out from behind trees. Musclemen terrified with his view froze at the spot. Nick very quickly dealt with them using his natural speed, the agility and sharp claws. After a few brief lapses defeated men moaned at his feet on the pavement.

"Nick! Hide yourself, the sheriff is coming!" The girl shouted pointing with hand in the direction from which the law enforcement officer was coming. The boy ran to the car. A sheriff came up to Molly. He saw thugs lying on sand noticing blood on their hurt limbs.

"What happened here?" He asked with a grave face.

"These three tried to get to me. But they forgot that women also had claws and they're able to defend themselves". The girl very quickly thought her version of the events up.

"Yeah, yeah..." The sheriff scratched his head. Molly came back to the car. The policeman waved goodbye to her.

"Best wishes to your Mother!" he cried out to her diverging toward the pub.

"Of course!" The girl answered him gladly.

"Sheriff! This was not her! Some monster attacked us! You must find him! See how he scratched us!" The one of the thugs tried to explain.

"Ok, ok..." The man replied looking at him in disbelief. Molly quickly drove away from the car park. "You don't have to hide yourself Nick". She announced looking at the back of her car. The mutant came out from under the red blanket.

"Thanks for the help. You exposed yourself, if sheriff saw you..." Molly continued.

"I couldn't let them..."

"You were wonderful! I'm a happy girl, I have my private Wolverine!" The girl kissed WolfCub on the cheek.

"And one more time, thanks" She added.

"Listen, do you think that sheriff will believe that you scratched them this way?" Nick asked preventively.

"Sure, he's famous here for his stupidity." They both started laughing. Nick and Molly came back to the desert house of the girl when it started darkening. The mother bustled about by the grill, driving children, who were teasing her, off from it. Young mutants were talking with Joe and with each other. As soon as fat lady noticed that Wolfcub and Molly were approaching with a wood, she called them to herself immediately.

"Come here quickly! The sooner we start the better! We don't have to wait!" The woman urged them. Nicholas quickly spread the cargo on the ground and the other started to form the bonfire.

"I ask for the fire!" Joe shouted to Ben. The boy lighted a pile of wood placed before him. Hope emerged from the trailer. Seeing the fire, she smiled.

"Come to us! Quickly!" Mark called her.

"And you too!" Fat woman called her children who walked away somewhere.

"Did the head stop aching you?" Sarah asked Hope.

"Yeah, I'm feeling much better..." Joe adjusted the camera.

"You know... I was in New York few months ago... in the Town Mutant. I came to the small café in which the lovely girl worked. She greeted me there with the text from the old film... do you remember mother?"

"Of course".

"So look at the lens and repeat!"

_"We accept you, we accept you! One of us! One of us! Gooble gabble, Gooble gabble, one of us!" _

Joe's family and the six of young mutants were immortalized on the photo. Everyone dealt with the bonfire, spending the evening on the food and shared conversations. Sarah and Hope peeled off from the group and sat down nearby, on the bench standing by one of the camping trailers. Sarah noticed that her companion had been quiet, she tried to avoid conversations and contact with the others. Such a behavior was dissimilar to her.

"You ate so little..." Black-haired girl tried to start the conversation.

"I don't like such things, I don't tolerate them... if a stomach ached me during the way forward we would be in trouble." Hope answered. Then silence fell again.

"But it's not the only reason, right? Are you thinking about her all the time, Am I right?" Network asked, because she could see that her friend was feeling bad. Hope didn't answer her.

"You're bearing me a grudge, that I spoke bad of her..." Sarah continued.

"Tell me one thing... why don't you like her, why don't you like your sister?" Hope asked after a moment of thought.

"Ah... If I didn't like her I wouldn't be sitting here with you, don't you think? You know, even if you want to be reconciled with somebody, understand somebody but this person doesn't want to give you the chance it's pointless."

"You want to say, that it comes from Jessica's side? She don't like you? Why?"

"Hope, Did she talked about me with you?"

"No, she didn't like to talk about herself, but once... she said, that when you had been children your father separated you, when he had left your mother".

"That's the point... When we were younger, we did everything together. I was the only friend who always understood her and who she accepted... Essentially we were so close to each other, that she didn't want to notice other people. You know what had to happen when she had to leave with the mum into a place completely unknown to her, while I stayed at home with our father? Jessica started to hate father for it, she blamed him for becoming lonely, pointed at by all people. hate All these years, she associated the father with me, she formed the bad opinion about me the same as about him. She never said it aloud, but on the first days at the Institute she treated me extremely cold and then she didn't want even to look at my face. At one time, she said something to me coldly, when I tried to talk with her. Something in the style: "I see that you remember me now..." or something similar..."

"And after Jessica had to leave you, didn't you try to contact with her, to talk?"

"At the beginning I tried... I called, but she refused to talk to me, she didn't answer letters. In the end I was offended at her and I severed our relations. Now I know that it was a mistake. I should know that her anger will be transformed into longing for the sister. But I was a child then, as well as she was... And now I don't even know if I manage to rectify this mistake."

"Don't talk like this... you'll certainly manage! When we find Jessica you'll be reconciled with her. I'll talk with her, I'll convince her to you... everything will be solved between you two, certainly."

"I can see that you convinced me... you're sweet, do you know about it? Really... I'm pleased that Jessica found such a wonderful friend. She feels the same about you, I'm sure..". Sarah announced smiling to her friend.

"Do you think so?"

"I'm sure. She opened to you, it means that you're somebody exceptional for her".

"Ah, you don't know how I would like this to be true..." Hope again fell into a pensive mood. She sighed and stretched her arms. She looked at Sarah's face.

"You're really similar to her. You have the same lovely eyes... the talk with you bolstered up my courage. I'll go to the trailer, I'll try to fly my astral projection as far as I can, perhaps I'll notice Jessica, or at least I'll find some track to her..."

"In that case I'm coming back to the group. Good luck..."

"Bye."

The glow of the burning fire lightened up the neighborhood plunged in the night's blackness. Megan was looking at the flame, she was watching its dance attentively and her thoughts wandered to some remote place. Mark finished the conversation and jokes with Joe and his mother, he decided that he would spend the rest of the evening in the company of his girlfriend. He bent over her.

"Megan... it's a bit too loud here, don't you think?" He asked.

"Yes, but it's cheerful." The girl replied frankly.

"Go with me, don't we deserve five minutes in solitude?" Pixie didn't answer his question. She got up and very slowly moved toward the desert. Mark sensed that something was wrong with her.

"What are you waiting for!" Megan urged him. Mutants receded from the bonfire, then stopped behind the trailer in order to have a bit of privacy.

"Megan, you behave strange today. What is happening with you?" Mark asked.

"You're wrong". Pixie denied turning her head away.

"I'm not... you became sad since we had to get off from the train, wait a minute... since we waited for the hitch-hiking. I know what you mean, you're angry at me for what I said to Sarah? Am I right? Are you envious of her?"

"No! Let's say... not entirely... it's about something quite different". The girl was confused with his question, her thoughts were not clear and she couldn't prepare an answer .

"Tell me, we cannot have secrets". The boy insisted.

"You know, I sometimes think that you treat me the same way as other girls who you tried to pick up before me..."

"Why do you think this way? We already talked about it, I told you that this time it's different, I had finally decided, that it must be you..."

"Yes, but I know that a few girls heard something similar from you... and now you're flirting with Sarah!" Pixie shouted clenching her fist. Mark rested his hands on her shoulders.

"Listen Megan... perhaps I said something like that to somebody earlier... but now it's different. Earlier I met with many girls only because I searched "something" special in them, but none of them had it. I'm not able to go out with somebody only in order not to hurt her... but now my search is finished. I know that by you I feel "something" and I want you to trust me, please believe in me".

Megan smiled.

"You shouldn't make yourself the opinion of such a skirt-chaser. It'd be easier for me..."

"Hmm... I'm pleased that you're envious of me". Megan relaxed. Mark embraced her and kissed her lips. Joe and his mother were walking around. They noticed the couple snuggled to themselves.

"The night is becoming hot." Fat woman announced .

"1: 0 for the night, mum!"

WolfCub and Molly also walked away from the bonfire. The girl sensed that the boy was worrying about something from the time of the visit in the town.

"Brighten up... you did the right thing to these reptiles. I told you, the sheriff will guess nothing because he's not the most brightest man on the Earth as I said you before. After all I know him for ages". She tried to comfort him.

I'm not thinking about these thugs... rather about what I did to that bearded man".

"Did you put his head in the bog? If you ask me it's a too small penalty for somebody who spat and offended a woman".

"That's not the point... do you know why I got mad at him so much? I gave some thought to it, Ben most probably would say to treat it lightly... but I could simply not. I could see myself in him".

"Don't talk nonsense. You are far better than that pig... you showed it".

"Yeah... but I behaved towards Jessica the same way he acted towards us. She hacked me off with her behavior and the oddness and I didn't hide my averse to her. She never showed it, but most probably it often hurt her... perhaps it's one of reasons of her escape with that guy..."

"You still have a chance to rectify everything. You must track her down". Molly consoled him again. "Yeah... but does she want to talk to me?" Nick was full of anxieties.

"Oh well, you must find out on your own".

"I'll go to bed. I must have enough strength to tear apart this moron who kidnapped Jessie". Molly gripped the boy's hand.

"Wait. Perhaps you'll never visit us again... close your eyes". The girl embraced the mutant and kissed him passionately. Joe and fat lady noticed also this couple.

"2: 0, mum! Perhaps your dream will come true?" The stout woman sniveled from the thrill.

The only persons who stayed at the bonfire were Sarah and Ben. Both were mutely fixing their eyes on the fire which the boy had been strengthening with his flames every couple of minutes.

"How it is to be closed in the carapace impenetrable for the others?" Network asked.

"Are you talking about my flame? I already get used to it. It's ok if don't go too close to somebody and everything is alright."

"Yes, it's your biggest problem... wouldn't you like to cuddle up to somebody, to kiss somebody?" "You know... I'm trying not to think about such things. However when the moments of doubt and breakdown are coming I think about others who have worse fate than I. Kevin, Rogue..."

"It means you're longing for the closeness". Sarah announced.

"After all I'm the ordinary man." The boy answered her quietly. Silence fell again. Sarah got up.

"So... I'm going to have a nap. Tomorrow we'll certainly meet with Jessie. We must be well rested and ready for everything. Tomorrow the X-Men will arrive".

"What makes you so sure?" asked surprised Match.

"Premonition. Simply". The girl went in the direction of the trailer. Ben strengthened the flame of the bonfire again.

"I'm sorry Joe, it won't be 3:0 for the night..." He said to himself.

Hope sat down on the bed in one of trailers. She looked around herself, there was a lot of pieces of junk and old clothes. The girl didn't like it, but she knew that she could not count on luxuries on the remote desert. She closed her eyes and after a moment she left her body in the form of the astral projection. Rising higher and higher, she could see herself, campsite of the Joe's family and her friends busy with conversations, desert and lights of the city visible from a distance. She headed in their direction. She very quickly crossed the state border. She felt that something was calling her, inviting her. She sailed in the direction of this encouraging thought.

"Jessica." She thought. She felt her presence, her breath and the touch of skin through delicate pajamas, smell of shampoo in her hair and light reflecting in her brown eyes. She could hear her crying, she could see the mouth bending in a smile. After a moment she was in a front of the motel in which Sleepwalker and Jessie really stayed. The girl noticed the light in one of windows. She felt excruciating anxiety, emotion tearing her apart, calling for help from the thousand of doors of the hotel blacker than the dress made of the night and pain of the wound inflicted through the ebony, black mirror leading to world of the illusion. She quickly found herself inside a room. She could see Jessie sitting by the wall and the man with a long hair dressed in a dark clothing with a cape standing by her.

"Jessica! You must come back to us! You're in a danger!" She tried to shout out. Sleepwalker sensed her presence. He looked at her direction. Hope was moved to some other place. She was floating above rock protruding from the ocean against which waves were butting. She could see the girl in the black dress standing over the chasm. Long-haired man appeared before her. He caught her by the neck. It was strange, because nobody have been able to touch her astral projection before.

"You irritated me girl! But now I know your secrets". He throw the apparition of the girl into clouds rushing in the sky with all his might. Hope came back to her body. The reaction of her organism was sudden, she shouted loudly. Paragons heard her and ran to the trailer.

"Hope! What happened?" Ben asked.

"Is everything all right?"He added. Trance being poured in sweat gripped the pillow. It was hard for her to catch the breath.

"Jessica... we must hurry up. He wants to do something very bad to Jessica".

A night reigned over the motel in which Preview and her companion stayed. Sleepwalker being in his "earthly" figure of the tall boy with black hair was looking out of the window at the starry sky. Jessica went into a room. She had wet hair and black shirt and shorts on herself. She sat down on the armchair distant from the place in which the boy was staying.

"How are you feeling?" The black-haired man asked her.

"I'm okay, essentially I'm surprised, that they have such a nice bathrooms here. Things are sometimes completely different than we're depicting them". The girl announced smiling.

"And what about your memory?"

"It's better now... I know that I wanted to meet with my mother in Salvation very much but Frost didn't let me leave. Later you appeared and suggested your help. However I still have the muddle in head, when I'm trying to remember our first meeting".

"Not important... when we will reach Salvation everything should become clear".

"Maybe... but all the time I'm having a feeling that I'm in some sleep, that I'm going somewhere not being able to find my way".

"Therefore I am by you... I am your signpost". The boy sat down close to Jessica. He tried to embrace her.

"You will see your mother. Then everything will become clear..." He said to her quietly.

"Ah..." The girl wasn't pleased with his presence.

"Is something wrong?" He asked her.

"No, nothing, but my memories from the childhood aren't the best ones..."

"Would you like to tell me about yourself?"

"For what? You told me many times that you know everything about me".

"Yes, but perhaps you don't know everything about yourself..." The boy replied very mysteriously. "Damn... I don't like when you're talking in riddles. It's meddling my thoughts". Jessica said raising her voice.

"Just tell me about yourself. Why do you want to meet with your mother so much? Were you with her in bad terms?"

"No, really no. She has always helped me with everything and she accepted me, even when it turned out I'm a mutant".

"It means that she have always been important to you?"

"Yes, but apart from that when I was small, I loved to spend the time with my twin sister. I couldn't find a common language with other girls, they have always done and liked something completely different than I... but Sarah was different. She has always been by me and she helped me, although she disagreed with me in many matters. Then, I was too weak to fight with the meanness of people, but it was Sarah who protected me from everything... in the end however..."

"Your parents went separate ways, yes?"

"Yes... I moved with my mum to her old home. The father remained with Sarah in our house. It was a terrible experience for me... I missed Sarah and I started hating our father for what he did to us. I could not find my place in a new environment, I had been pushed away once again... Sarah wasn't by me, there was no one to defend me... I started to hate her for it. I threw away every letter which came from her to me until she at last stopped writing. I didn't want to make friends with anybody, I hated that city and the entire world... I wanted to move into other place, far from pain and prejudice."

"Don't you remember something from that period? Something very important that happened then?" The man asked, delved into the topic.

"No, I closed my mind from everything and actually..."

The boy approached her. He embraced her with hands. She thought that they were very cold. She trembled.

"Don't you remember the travel through the house full of thousands of the doors, in which you tried to find a way to your promised land, your land of magic and wishes? Don't you remember rock amongst oceans where all eyes are pointed at you on and granting your every request?"

"Listen... you asked me to tell you about myself, about what happened in Salvation. I don't feel like listening to the pseudo philosophical poetry, really. I was feeling bad then and a chance encounter at the library rescued me from my depression. I got to know Michelle there, she invited me into the accidental conversation and I was enthralled with her personality and the lifestyle. I built up my strength then, for the first time I felt what is means to have the real friend. Michelle taught me the way to draw power from my own difference and how to protect myself from all the people around me. Michelle created me as I'm now. Soon the first symptoms of the fact that I'm a frigging mutant appeared... At first dreams, then visions of the future which have always turned out to be true. At first they were only about trivial things, for example that a postman will come in a minute, but one day..." Tears appeared in Jessie's eyes.

"I had the vision of the Michelle's death. I woke up crying, I called her, I asked her to take care of herself... I cried all day long, as if I knew that my vision would come true. Soon I learnt that Michelle died, some cursed son of a bitch crashed his car in the vicinity for her house killing her on the spot. Then my world collapsed entirely..." Tears started to flow across the Jessica's cheek.

"I knew that I wouldn't be able to live with the awareness that Michelle died because I ordered her to stay at home. I didn't want to struggle with reality once again. I knew that I would cause my mum who supported me all the time the plenty of pain but I could simply not. I went to the bathroom and I cut frigging veins. I waited for the death, but even this one I screwed up. Somebody rescued me".

"Tell me and did you hesitated before you did it?"

"Yes. I couldn't make this step for the long moment".

"And perhaps you didn't do it? Don't you remember that police were surprised that there was no blood on a razor blade although you were almost dead because of bleeding? Don't you remember that you put the razor off, because you decided you want to live? Don't you remember that wounds were inflicted by the mirror as black as the night breaking before you, freeing your death? Don't you remember that it was the night when we met for the first time?"

"Stop it. I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I did it then and now I regret it very much, but I cannot change the past". Black-haired girl said very upset.

"Really. Didn't you think that your power could act in the other way. Perhaps you are something else, something more than clairvoyant? Didn't you think that your thoughts could shape the future and the past?"

"This is too much! You don't want to reveal me what you mean with all this stalking, you're accusing me... that I caused the death Michelle, that I killed her!" Jessica got up violently. She felt like crying. She knew that she had to leave this room as soon as possible, farthest from the boy who had influence on her, she didn't understand. He firmly grabbed her by the hand, knocked her over to the bed. He immobilized her hands and lay down on her body.

"In that case perhaps you want to see the truth! Now the gate to your own land will open before you... we must only find the key!"

He embraced her even stronger and started kissing her after the neck, face, mouth. She felt his stone cold touch and unpleasantly cool kisses.

"Leave me be! Go away from me!" She screamed. She knew that she had to quickly free herself. She closed her eyes. Stream of tears were flowing down her cheeks. Sleepwalker moved his hand to her blouse and later tried to get up to her shorts. Jessica clenched fists.

"Leave me be!" She screamed even louder. The boy assumed his real figure of long-haired man dressed in the night for a moment,. He jumped away from Jessie, took a few steps into the back and leaned against the door.

"You don't want to find the truth... it's a shame... I am going for a walk". He left the room banging the door. Black-haired girl tidied her clothes up, wiped tears from the face and came to her knapsack for the cell phone. She took it out, but it turned out that it had been broken.

"Fuck!" She swore throwing it into the dustbin.

Sleepwalker was walking along the lane near the hotel plunged into darkness. After a moment he disappeared in a shadows prevailing all around. He found himself again on the rock protruding from a storm-tossed sea. A woman in the black dress came up to him.

"You lost, she demonstrated, that she still is able to destroy us. We can lose everything if you make the next mistake".

"I will not. This time we are going straight to Salvation. Where everything began and the reality is so swirled the passage to us will be simplest for her. Her gift should open the doors and give us the real freedom. When it will happened..."

"We will be able to accomplish her dream, her request from that day. We will create the world only for her, in which she will finally be safe". The girl came out from the shadow. The wind was shaking her black hair. She smiled and her face turned out be the living image of the face of Jessica Vale.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter VI**

**Jessica Vale**

_What do they see when they look at me ?_

_Who are they to judge me_

_If they never spoke with me ?_

_Never looked without laughing_

_Never tried to see, see me_

After the whole night of conversations and confessions Paragons slept in one of the camp trailers constituting the homestead of Joe's family. Everyone from the group woke up very early in the morning because they knew that it had been necessary to set off to the Salvation town as soon as possible. Thanks to the night-time session with Hope's astral projection they learnt that Jessica had already been in the Oklahoma state and intentions of her companion weren't the purest. After packing their personal things, young mutants gathered by their new friend's car. The fat woman was standing opposite them and two of her youngest children were holding her skirt. Joe's younger brother and his sister Molly were standing a few steps further.

" You don't even know how much joy you gave us with this visit. Photographs from the bonfire will be something precious for us." Fat woman said.

"Stop it mother, or else you'll be moved to tears right away." Joe instructed her.

"Our friends are in a hurry, let us finish these goodbyes as soon as possible and let us move into the way forward". He added.

"Thank you for everything." Sarah said to him.

"We'll also remember about you ". Mark entered the conversation.

"Will you visit us some time?" The stout woman asked.

"Of course!" Megan answered without a hesitation.

"If only we can..." Ben added.

"Remember that you promised to call me when it's all over." Molly turned directly to Nicholas.

"You can count on me". The boy replied.

"In that case we're going." Joe announced patting Hope on the back.

"I know that you think only about her know." He whispered looking straight into girl's eyes.

"Yes..." Trance replied feeling a bit embarrassed with a fact that her behavior betrayed how much she wanted to continue the travel and meet with Jessica. All mutants took the place in the car and set off on a journey. Fat woman was waving a handkerchief to say goodbye and then the group of her children had been chasing car all over the desert for a moment. Molly was sadly looking at her new friend driving away for her.

Sleepwalker and Jessica's car reached the small town which seemed to had been abandoned entirely for decades. There was an old gas station on which the rusty car body was left by its owner a long time ago, a wooden sign advertising non existing restaurant with faded, almost impossible to read out letters and strange black building looking like a church. The rest of the buildings were reduced by forces of the nature and people visiting that graveyard almost to piles of stones and wood which ceased to resemble products of the hand of man, through all passing years. It was afternoon and the Sun was shining high above the horizon. The pair set off on the travel, a few hours after their quarrel in the hotel, before a daybreak, when the moon had risen above the boundless desert. The ride was long, therefore the girl decided to sleep, she knew that it could build her strength up and she could avoid the conversation with her companion who she didn't trust and was afraid of. The boy left the car and gently touched the cheek of the sleeping girl.

"Jessica, wake-up. Time to get up!" He shouted. Black-haired girl slowly opened her eyes. She looked out behind the pane gazing at the man standing before her.

"Did we reach the town? After all we were going to... all day long..." The girl was surprised at how quickly the time passed during her journey.

"I thought that we would stop here for a moment". The boy replied not looking at his companion.

Jessica left the car. Dust and sand rose from the place in which her feet hit the ground. Mutant girl looked around covering her eyes from a glitter of the Sun with her own hand.

"Damn... it looks like damned cemetery..." She announced surprised.

"Place which already stopped dreaming". Her companion added.

"Like on the graveyard... I don't know why but I don't like this place. Why did we come here?"

"I thought that perhaps you wanted to stretch, that perhaps you must do something..." Saying these words the man tried to embrace her.

"I don't. And don't touch me. I told you about it".

Jessica moved away from him in a flash. In the same moment she noticed the old church. The building riveted her attention in a mysterious way. She had been fixing her eyes on its walls breaking down from the old age and windows in which all stained glass was broken for the longer moment. Her attitude towards the place in which she found herself changed radically.

"Maybe... I'll enter there, Ok?" She announced pointing at the building.

"Of course, perhaps it's the reason we stopped here." The girl moved in the direction of the building. The boy leaned against the car. He closed his eyes entering into his specific trance.

During the entire trip to the town in which they were expecting to find Jessica, a few of young mutants fell asleep in the car and Hope was one of them. The girl was sleeping with her head leaned against Sarah's shoulder. In her dream she found herself on the rock sticking out of the sea against which waves had been butting every couple of minutes and black clouds were moving with a high speed above her head. Mutant girl took a step forward. She noticed the woman in a black dress standing over the chasm.

"Jessie? Is it you? Jessie?" She asked surprised. She tried to talk with her and in the same moment somebody touched her arm. She turned around. Sleepwalker was standing by her in his real appearance. His black hair and the cape were fluttering in the breeze. He was looking at the girl with terrifying eyes.

"It's you who did something to Jessica! Give her back!" The girl jumped at him with fists.

"Hope Abbot... I met here with you in order to clarify a few matters. You must force your friends to turn back and cease their search for Jessica". The man replied unusually calmly. He sounded unnatural and odd in such a anxious place.

"Why! Are you threatening us with something?" Young mutant assumed a defensive position.

"Of course not! It's not my nature. If you disturb her now, you will cause her a great pain."

"It's you who cause her pain all the time! You're mesmerize her with illusions, what do you want to achieve?"

"It is quite the opposite. I am showing her the truth. I am reminding her who she was, who she really is. I want to restore her to her former self, make her happy and fulfilled."

"You took her from me, from her friends..."

"To give her what she really needs. I will lead her to the place in which she will never be lonely anymore, which nobody will be causing her pain, in which she will be a queen. I want her to be happy and if you indeed love her so much you should let her walk away! In this world she is repeatedly hurt and alone but it will never happen again where I am taking her!" Sleepwalker raised his voice. His hair danced in the wind.

"Nonsense... you think that she'll be happy in a dead and blank land? Never. Her place is in our school, I'll take care of her. I will be fighting with you. Everyone will be."

"I knew that you wouldn't let become convinced".

Sleepwalker ran up to the black woman. He embraced her tenderly.

"I will be ready for the meeting with you. Remember about it." He jumped off the rock together with his companion.

"Jessica!" Hope shouted waking up from the dream. Everyone looked at her.

"What happened? " They asked.

"I had a dream. The man who kidnapped Jessica talked with me. We must hurry up. He wants to do to her something really bad!"

The door to the church opened with a characteristic, unpleasant crack. The girl cautiously came inside and the black-haired boy followed her right away. Darkness, lightened up only in a few places by the light falling through narrow slits in planks covering windows greeted them. The interior was dusty and full of webs wrapping all objects which resisted the passage of time. Rows of benches covered with the layer of coarse dust and destroyed confessional were standing by one of walls. All other objects as images and figures which are usually found in the that kind of places were taken away or stolen probably when the people still lived in a town. Disturbing silence prevailed inside. Jessica sat down on one of less destroyed bench. The boy came up to her.

"I didn't know that you believe in God." He announced.

"Do I? You should know about it, you're my dream." The girl replied.

"It's interesting... after everything what happened to you."

"Perhaps I simply like the charm of old churches and other places abandoned and forgotten by everyone". Jessica announced rising from the bench.

"To tell the truth I was in a church last time at Michelle's funereal. I finally found strength to go through its thresholds, not thinking about her and reconciled with what happened. You know, I really felt better. I didn't expect it..."

"This place is good as every other..." The man whispered. He looked at her clearly dissatisfied with what he heard a moment ago."

"What do you mean... good for what ?" The black-haired girl was surprised and alarmed by his behavior. Sleepwalker's eyes glowed in violet light in the darkness of the room.

"What do you want to do?" Jessica asked. She noticed that it had darkened outside the windows and a very strong wind started blowing. The door of the church slightly opened clattering tousled by blows of the gale. Jessica became more nervous.

"What the hell is happening here!"

"Wake up". The black-haired man said and put his hands on the girl's face. The Jessie's mind was flooded with memories. She saw herself as a younger teenage girl.

_I can't believe that it is only me_

_The person to hate,_

_The only left out_

_I can't believe how they can be so mean_

_If they could feel the brutal stings of their words,_

_And the bitter cold when they laugh_

"She is getting back home crying. Her mother is trying to tell her something. She is shouting to her that she hates this place, that she wants to come back to her real house, that she will never be able to live here. Her mother is giving her the letter from sister but she is tearing it to pieces and throwing its remains to the bin of rubbish. She is running out of the house crying. "that's all your fault, I don't want to know you. I'm so lonely because of you. You left me behind! " She is running out to the street. She is looking all around, she can see the world wet with her own tears. After a moment she is screaming even louder: "I hate this place! I want to be somewhere else, where nobody will find me!" Her wish is unexpectedly coming true. The space around her is undergoing an incredible transformation. Some strange, black, monumental building is going up before her. She is running to it without the moment of thought, she is going through many rooms, She is opening hundreds of doors - she is becoming the guest of the hotel with thousand doors. In the end she is finding the strange space in one of the rooms. Sea storm is raging here and she is running along the rock sticking out of the churned up element. Her clothes are turning into the black dress. "NO" She is speaking to herself. She is by her mother again crying in her shoulders. "

"What was that! What was that?" Jessica asked worried.

"Truth. Your past. Your real past". The black-haired man answered her calmly.

"It's impossible. My abilities are only predicting the future. Nothing more". The girl tried to convince herself that she was right.

"No. Your abilities are the creating of reality. You are its weaver".

"That's a lie! Leave me alone! I don't want to hear it!" Jessica was more and more terrified with what had happened to her. She ran out of the building opening the rotten door widely. Cold and exceptionally unpleasant wind enfolded her. Black clouds were floating above the abandoned small town, exactly like in the vision with the rock sticking out of the storm-tossed sea.

"What the fuck is happening here!" Jessica whispered looking at the strange weather phenomenon with a great concern. The sky became dark and cold, a darkness like during a total eclipse of the sun appeared everywhere. The girl noticed that a dozen meters before her the gloomy, pitch-black building from her memories were standing.

"What's this?" She asked with trembling voice.

"Hotel with thousand doors!" Sleepwalker shouted out. Jessica turned around. The man was in his real figure and his cape was fluttering on a bitterly cold wind.

"Go farther! Go there!" The man urged mutant girl and pushed her toward the building. The girl unwillingly reached the door and opened it. She knew that she had to come inside or black-haired man could even kill her. She crossed the threshold and not giving a thought to the appropriateness of her action she ran up the stairs to the next door. Sleepwalker closed the entry to the building. He smiled. "I must greet our guests".

Joe stopped the car on the desert. All his passengers got off and looked in the direction of the small abandoned town. Above it, black clouds were hovering and the entire neighborhood was enveloped in the fog. In spite of the fine weather prevailing all around, an unnatural storm raged above the city. "What is happening there?" Joe was surprised.

"It's she... it's Jessica... these clouds are like in my dream." Hope replied.

"What this son of a bitch is doing with her?" Sarah asked rhetorically.

"That's him! He's standing there, he's mocking us!" Nicholas shouted. He fell into a rage and ran insanely toward the city.

"Somebody stop him!" Ben ordered.

"Megan!" Mark shouted. The winged girl rose up into the air. She landed by the running mutant. She grabbed his shoulder. He quickly broke free and clawed at her. Pixie avoided being hurt only thanks to her reflex. After a moment Nick cooled down.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what happened to me".

"You almost tear me apart!" Megan shouted looking at the friend with a fear.

"WolfCub! What is happening with you!" Match asked.

"I don't know, I just sensed that he was mocking us. I felt like killing him".

"We'll go there Nicholas. But a group." Ben announced.

"We're changing into our uniforms!" He added.

"Yeah! Girls can change in the car." Joe proposed. Mutants quickly put Paragons uniforms on, and Sarah changed into the blue version of their costume she wore being Alpha Squadron member. Match came to Joe. He shook his hand.

"I thank you for everything. We'll go there alone. Go as furthest as possible from here. We don't know what can happen there".

"Okay, okay... it's the X-Men's mission". After these words Joe came back to his car. He went away. "Now a real part of our expedition will begin". Sarah said.

"Let's go there." Nick added.

"We're going for you, Jessie." Hope announced.

"Avengers Assemble!" Mark shouted. Everyone looked at him with a surprise.

"What do you mean? I have always wanted to say it!"

"We're going!" The group headed toward the small town.

_Once more I'm running_

_Running away, I must hide_

_Can't take anymore_

_A fight to free me from an endless struggle with life_

_Running, tell me how far should I go_

_If they're all the same_

_This fight..._

_I am fighting my way through_

Jessica were going through doors. Every one of them hidden strange, surreal view. In the first room she could see lights of small eyes lurking in the darkness and she could hear breaths of tens of lungs which tried to hurt her almost physically. Children's voices reciting the senseless rhyme reached her ears. When the blood-curdling whisper became more and more loud, the girl quickened the pace in order to vacate that room. Two iron boxes were standing in the next room. Every of them had a barred window out of which pale, feminine hands stuck out. Arms were trying to touch each other, but containers were located too far from themselves so that they could never obtain their desired goal. The next room was even more terrifying than previous ones , its walls were covered by the net of pulsating blood vessels. One of veins was cracked and blood poured from it like water gushing from the mountain source. A strange angel tied up with a barbed wire, whose broken wings poured the rain of white feathers was hidden behind the next door. Jessica not being able to look at his figure went to the next room. The area without any windows and furniture was entirely bathed the darkness, dust, withered flowers and webs. In the end, the girl reached the last door. Being in a trance she opened them without the longer thought. In the final chamber, the huge mirror made of black glass were standing in the very center of the room. Jessica opened her mouth seeing its gloomy silhouette, her eyes widened from an amazement. She recalled everything what really had happened that night, when she had tried to take her own live and what was her true powers.

Meanwhile at Xavier's institute, Emma ran into the study of Scott Summers. She was irritated very much.

"Scott... the track of our six disappeared on the border of Oklahoma and New Mexico! Moreover a great energy source appeared there. There is no scale on Cerebra! Readings shows that Jessica is its source. Computer says that she's an Omega!"

"Omega? But Jessica..." Cyclops was surprised.

"Exactly. She doesn't have a potential for becoming the Omega. Therefore I commissioned Katherine to check correlation with well-known mutant powers". After a few minutes of the uncertainty Kitty Pryde ran into the room.

"Listen! The computer did all analyses. Closest match in our database is Proteus, Jamie Braddock and Wanda Maximoff. Our Jessica is reality warper and everything is pointing at the fact that she isn't able to control her abilities".

"Damn it!" Emma swore.

"Kitty! gather Hank, Piotr and Logan. We are setting off to Oklahoma immediately. Let Alex's and Ororo's groups will be on alert. Emma! Try to get in touch with Charles. The situation is grave". Summers Scott ordered.

Paragons and Network were looking around the derelict desert city plunged in the darkness. Above their heads black clouds were whirling and the point of their turnover turned out to be the black, dark building in the distance rising over surroundings. The group was seeking the man who kidnapped Jessica and they were ready to get even with him once and for all.

"Where is he?" Ben asked.

"I don't know. His smell is everywhere. As if he was this fog, clouds, the darkness. I don't understand it at all". Nicholas answered.

"We must find Jessie. And move her to the safe place". Hope announced with a firm voice. Suddenly Sleepwalker appeared before her.

"Hope! Look out!" Sarah shouted seeing danger threatening her friend. The man caught the girl.

"Are you in a hurry to get to Jessica? Don't you remember what I told you earlier? Must you see it for yourself ?"

"Give Jessica back!" Trance was annoyed very much. Her friends ran up to her ready for the fight with the black-haired man. He was amused.

"Then go to her!" Sleepwalker moved his arm and at the same moment the girl disappeared.

"Hope!" Mark cried out with a terror.

"What did you do to her you bastard?" Nicholas clawed at him. The man covered himself from his attack with a cape as black as the moonless night.

"I already told you that you are repulsing". Sleepwalker hit the boy and knocked him down. Match launched the stream of a fire and Megan expelled a cloud of hallucinogenic dust toward the enemy. It made no impression on him, he was standing adamant to the attacks in spite of flames raging around his body.

We'll see how you'll react to it!" Mark cried out and using the hardest music which he found in the Discman he produced the wall of the energy rushing to the opponent. Sleepwalker fell down struck by its force, but recovered very quickly from the attack. He looked at the boy with a great hate.

"You... you belong to me the most out of your five. Perhaps it's time for you to wake up, see the truth, your past, your real past".

"What are you talking about ?" Mark asked surprised. Black-haired man only smiled and overshadowed. Some men emerged from behind buildings. Every one of them was armed with a gun, revolver or shotgun. A few of them started shooting at mutants. Network and Match found shelter behind a ruined gas station. Mark helped Nick to get up and he moved with him toward the church. Pixie ran after them.

"Who are they! Where did they come from ?" Mark was surprised.

"Perhaps they're a hallucination? Dust from my wings missed this guy and it dazed us?" The girl guessed.

"And we all can see the same thing? Impossible". DJ replied.

"They're real. I smelled it". Nick shared his observation with the group.

"Damn it! Megan, hide your wings! Squat!" Ben ordered from the station. The warning came a minute too late. One of men shot at the girl. The bullet punctured her wing. Wounded Megan fell to the grass in front of the church. Wolfcub quickly ran up to her and drew her into the interior of the building. The girl cringed and her face expressed big pain. Other man fired the revolver in the direction of Ben. The bullet stroked the shoulder of the mutant. Sarah tried to help him, but he pushed her away. The girl was surprised by his behavior very much.

"My blood is also hot. Literally..." He announced.

"Nick. Take care of Megan. I'll try to fight with them. My wave of the energy didn't work on this guy in a black, but as far as people are concerned it can break every bone in their body!" DJ shouted. He left outside the building playing the music in his player at a full blast. He was walking with a sure steps through the church graveyard to the meeting with assailants. At one point he stumbled over something. He looked at his legs and his face paled, tears appeared in his eyes. He noticed his ex-girlfriend who had died when he unintentionally generated a very strong energy for the first time on a party in high school, in other place and other time a few years ago, lying on the ground. The boy didn't think why she had been on this desert-like remote place. Fear and pain and the memory about those events paralyzed him entirely. He recognized all assailants with weapons. They were the sheriff from his city and other people who chased him as wild animals then. He curled up, he didn't want to fight or to escape. He wanted them to shoot him dead, he deserved it, he killed somebody whom he loved very much. Men approached the mutant. They pointed their weapon at him.

"What is he doing there? What is happening to him? He completely blacked out". Match was surprised. He was holding his aching arm all the time.

"Damn... I have no clue". Sarah also didn't know what it was all about.

"Perhaps... it looks like he saw something. He looks as if hes crying. Bloody hell! I know what this is all about!" She added.

"What?" Ben asked.

"Are you leader of the team and you didn't guess? Mark in the past accidentally hurt his girl. He told us, that he had wanted them to shoot him dead then. This madman made his past into a twisted reality! He changed it so that Mark believed that he really killed her then!"

"What will we do?"

"I have an idea. Damn it, it must come off!" Black-haired girl announced. She extended the hand to the DJ unconscious. She closed her eyes. Receivers of the boy's Discman started sparking and uttered unpleasant sound. Mark fell over and all men with weapons dissolved into thin air. Network and Match quickly moved in the direction of their friend.

"What did you do to him?" The fiery boy asked.

"I forced his Discman to short-circuit and emit very loud sound into ears".

"What about his eardrums?"

"I don't know, but this was the only plan I could think out. He would let them kill himself. Sarah kneeled by the boy. She arranged him in a more comfortable position.

"He'll be fine". She announced.

"Nice. The beginning and one of us is finished". Ben was dissatisfied with the existing turn of events. "Two". WolfCub announced leading injured Pixie out.

"Megan! Did they shoot her?" Ben asked shocked.

"Yes. Into the wing. She must have it very innervated because it aches her terribly. She lost a lot of blood". WolfCub helped the girl to sit down. Ben came up to her and he applied the hand to her wound.

"A little heat should stop the bleeding. It'll ache you Megan, but we have no choice. Clench your teeth".

The girl felt a great pain. She lowered the head trying not to scream. Tears appeared in her eyes. "Ben... three of us fell down... don't forget that he... kidnapped Hope..." She whispered.

"All right Megan, don't say more." Sarah took care of the friend. She laid her on the earth.

"Now I should take care of your wound". She turned to Match.

"There's no need. It closed on its own. I told you that I was hot-blooded".

Sleepwalker was standing with Hope on the rock protruding from a storm-tossed sea. He was embracing the girl and his cape was fluttering on the cold wind. Trance eyes were muddy as if she wasn't in contact with reality surrounding her.

"Hope... look at the truth about Jessica. See what she experienced when she came to the other side of the mirror." He whispered calmly. In the same time Preview was standing in the front of the black mirror. She could see in it herself in the black dress, and Sleepwalker standing on a rock with Hope in the distance. She reminded herself what really her power could do.

"Jessica Vale isn't just a precog, Hope. She is reality warper, twisted very much by her hurt psyche. She used her abilities for the first time in anger, when she wanted to move to other reality, where there would be nobody who in any way whatsoever could hurt her. She created the place in which we are now. Hotel with thousand doors, the place in which she began to look for her world. She found it here, where we are standing now, the rock amongst the stormy sea, anchor of the peace around the tumult of the reality, the place in which she was safe irrespective of what was happening around her. Then she got scared with this choice and came back to the normal world. When Jessica got to know Michelle, her own world started to fade away, the hotel closed its thousand doors and Jessica's dark version who stayed on rock, departed into an oblivion. Your friend split into two parts. The dark half being able to change the world remained on her rock and second half got down to the earth where she forgot about those events and invented a new power for herself - divination. Her abilities didn't disappear entirely, but they were put to a sleep. Visions which she had became true, because she got them to reality. When Michelle died, everything collapsed and then the Hotel again opened its doorsills. But this time she didn't want to walk away somewhere, she wanted to disappear, to die. She created me as the black part of her soul, her greatest passion and the cruelest executioner. She created her Thanatos, her death wish which assumed the human form. She lacked a courage to take her life that night. Therefore she summoned me. I cut her veins and I left her so that she lost a lot of blood. When she understood her mistake she wanted to destroy me, but she was too weak. I didn't disappear. I am her faithful servant, I want to comply with her request and bring her death. But it isn't so simple. Jessica in a moment of weakness wanted everyone around her to die. And I, modest servant I must listen to her. I am not able to destroy the entire world, I need all her power to do it. Therefore I devised all of this so that Jessica could find the road to her dark half and unite with her. Having her power I will be able to change the entire planet in a place as beautiful, as calm and as safe as this rock. Then I will satisfy her desire and Jessica will be really happy".

"no more tears, no more cries" Jessica touched the black mirror. Its area started cracking.

"no predicted paradise" the mirror exploded. Its fragments hurt the girl, wounds on her wrists renovated. Splashed with her own blood she started changing.

"no dreams, no more scars" Clothes disappeared from her body and a black dress appeared into its place. Mutant girl opened her eyes.

"no love to forever last" she found herself on the rock, she could hear the noise of the sea. She could see Sleepwalker and Hope before herself. She smiled.

"Jessica! It's me! Awake! Jessie! Struggle with it"! Trance shouted.

"In a vain. She can't hear you. And perhaps you want her to fulfill your dream?" Thanatos asked. Black-haired girl smiled. She raised the hand above her head. Hope's body lighted and the girl was moved into the completely different place. She was in some darkened room. She could hear someone's voices, some groans. She went up closer and noticed the bed was covered with a soft blanket and shielded with pink baldachin. Two girls were inside it, one of them was identical to Hope and the second one resembled Jessica. Both didn't have clothes, they were embracing each other, they were kissing and touching one another. Trance froze. She felt every kiss and touch of black-haired lover on her own body. She felt happy.

"It's your real desire. You want to have her body only for yourself. You came for it here. I fulfilled your desire. Touch them and you will take the place of your double. You will be able to spend the rest of live in the world of never-ending pleasure." Sleepwalker disappeared saying these words. Hope fell down on her knees. She felt the contact with her friend more and more intensively. She extended a hand to her body. She really wanted to touch her skin. Shiny tears appeared in her eyes.

"No. What you showed me isn't real. I never thought about Jessica in this way. She was never an object for me, the way you want to show it. And apart from that it isn't Jessica. It's a phantom created from deep inside my subconscious twisted by you, monster. My real desire..." Hope whispered and the bed with lovers disappeared into the nothingness.

"To be with Jessica, real Jessica."

Hope was again on the rock protruding in the sea. After a moment black clouds yielded, uncovering the large blue moon. The girl noticed Jessica standing alone over the chasm. She saw her face bathed in the moonlight expressing peace and sadness. She came closer to her.

"Jessie. I came to take you from here. Everyone is waiting outside. They're missing you. Give me a hand".

"Hope... didn't you think that perhaps I didn't want to come back? When I come back then again I'll be hurt. I'm fine right here, it's so calm here". Jessica said smiling lightly.

Thanatos appeared before the group of mutants. He looked at them with the contempt.

"I arrived to fulfill your real desires now. Prepare. You will be grateful for it, you will see".

Match and WolfCub were ready for the fight against the opponent. Sarah embraced Megan trying to protect her. In the same moment each of young mutants was moved to hotel's accommodation devoid of windows and doors. Nicholas was in the forest whose trees were made out of cardboard and the green carpet imitated grass. Around the boy a few people in wolf costumes made of different materials appeared. They started dancing around him howling to the paper moon. Megan was running after polystyrene's ruins completely naked and her wings sprinkled everything with golden dust. Mark was waiting for her in one of towers, in the shape of the high cylinder. The boy spread arms, Pixie ran up to him gladly and after a moment they both disappeared in the gulf of the phallic building. Match was floating plunged in the glass aquarium. He realize that he could breathe easily although he travelled in the water and moreover his flame seemed to disappear. At the same moment Sarah turned up in the front of the aquarium. The girl started slowly undressing smiling to her friend.

Blackbird was rushing in the direction of the abandoned city. On his deck all of the Astonishing X-Men were ready for the confrontation with whatever waited for them. The black glow surrounding the city also affected them. The darkness flooded the entire cabin reaching the interior of the mind of each of mutants.

"So many deaths on your hands... and yet you let the ones which you loved to walk away..." Logan heard Sleepwalker's voice in his thoughts.

"See your real desire. Everyone see it". The voice added.

"Mariko! Fox Silver!" Wolverine started screaming. He unsheathed his claws.

"Logan went berserk!" Emma informed.

"Henry! Hold him! Henry!" Cyclops wanted to give an order.

"Henry?" He asked surprised. Dr. McCoy was sitting hunched on the armchair not being able to move. "What is happening here!"

"Meet with your demons!" Thanatos' laughter was heard everywhere. Each of mutants plunged into their own frenzy. Colossus was going through the death of parents and sister Illyana once again, through his attempt to sacrifice himself for others when the medicine for the legacy virus was discovered, great sadness he felt when he betrayed the X-Men for Magneto and when he returned to them after the Avalon had fallen. Kitty Pryde could see her father dying in Genosha together with thousands of other mutants in Bay Hammer again. Wolverine fought with Sabretooth and Tsurayaba by dead bodies of Fox Silver and Mariko. Cyclops went through Jean's death thousand times, he recalled giving Askani his son and the darkness which Apocalypse had filled him. Dead Helions members, Generation X and other who she was not able to save were looking at Emma. The airplane was entirely engulfed by the wave of the darkness.

_I don't really want to be like them_

_The way they behave,_

_The way that they live_

_I don't really need someone_

_No people like that,_

_But someone in a world with warmth and respect_

_A world without the feeling_

Hope and Jessica were standing on in the world of illusions.

"What are you talking about Jessica? You'll never be happy here. It's dark and grimly in here. This isn't yours soul, you must remember your real self." Hope tried to convince her to return.

"What can you know about my soul? You don't understand it, I wanted to disappear then. I wanted to kill myself, I hurt myself in order to disappear from this world. I'm as dark and as gloomy as this place is. It's the inside of my heart. Nothing can really change it. I closed my soul for the world." Preview replied. Hope started crying.

"If you really think this way it's all right, stay here... But in that night, when you were sitting in the bathroom with the razor blade what was your real desire?" Jessica lowered her head. She was thinking. "Remember... Was what Sleepwalker showed us really a truth?"

"Yes..."

"It means that you didn't want to die. At the last moment, you resigned from the death, it was he who hurt you, it was he who slashed your wrists. You didn't want it, right?" Black-haired clenched fists. In her eyes tears started to shine. Hope turned toward the sky. She looked at clouds and stars.

"Do you remember when we talked in the Danger Room about the night sky? You told me then it was possible to distinguish the illusion from reality by looking at stars. You knew, that the ones created in the Danger Room were false... And you know what? This place also isn't real, it's an illusion... Look at the stars... you can see... they're artificial. They cannot be reflection of your heart". Jessica started crying.

"Even if I come back... then I'll again be hurt. Then I'll be suffering again. Everything will begin anew".

"You know... why did mum give me Hope as the name? She claimed that thanks to it I would never break down emotionally. That even if everything around me collapsed I'll always have a will to go on... I'll always remember her words. Now I want you also to believe in it. Give me a hand." Jessica stretched her hand out. She touched her friend's warm skin. Her mind filled itself with voices.

_Jessie became for me something more than a friend. I feel it when I'm by her, I could look at her for hours, her face seems so pretty to me... I want to be by her, to help her with everything..._

_I should know that her anger will be transformed into longing for the sister. But I was a child then, as well as she was... And now I don't even know if I manage to rectify this mistake._

_She never showed it, but most probably it often hurt her... perhaps it's one of reasons of her escape with that guy..." _

_"You still have a chance to rectify everything. You must track her down"._

_"Yeah... but does she want to talk to me?" "Oh well, you must find out on your own". _

_"I'll go to bed. I must have enough strength to tear apart this moron who kidnapped Jessie". _

Jessica opened her eyes. She felt warm touch of her friends.

"My Wish of that night... my real wish... to live and to be accepted and loved by somebody..." Preview replied and rivulets of tears flowed down her eyes.

"It already came true." Hope said and embraced her friend. She kissed her lips. Jessica hugged her.

"...to live and to be accepted and loved by somebody..." Sleepwalker heard this wish. He felt huge physical and psychological pain. He shouted spitting up blood, and then he fell down on his knees. "No... it isn't a truth... somebody is beguiling you with illusions". The hotel accommodations in which mutants were trapped faded away into the nothingness and Paragons found themselves in the real world again.

"Now we have a chance!" Ben cried out. Nicholas jumped to the man and he scratched his face with claws. Ben burnt him with flames. Thanatos escaped to the dark hotel. Holding his face he started looking for the door, searching for the door handle. In the same moment Jessica and Hope stopped kissing. Preview closed her eyes. Clouds disappeared from the sky exposing gorgeous blue sky and the Sun. The sea calmed down, it was sparkling from the reflected sunlight and the bare rock, on which girls were standing, became covered with green grass and flowers. The wind became warm and pleasant.

"It's so nice here Jessica." Hope announced.

"But we must come back". She added.

"Wait... if I really can change reality I'll get rid of this bloody dress". Jessica said. The black dress disappeared from her body, being transformed into green-red Paragons uniform, similar to Hope's. "Because after all we're one group." She announced.

"Are we going?"

"We're are going". Girls left the illusory world.

"I won't give up." Thanatos whispered. Hotel with thousand doors started shaking and its walls began cracking. After a few seconds it exploded breaking down into thousands of pieces. The rain of stone and wooden grains bathed Sleepwalker tearing his dress, hair and cape, wounding his body. The man fell down on the rubble. He tried to recover from the shock. Trance emerged out of clouds of dust. She came up to Ben and she cuddled up to him.

"Hope, you're in one piece. What about Jessica?" The boy asked.

"See."

When the dust after collapsing hotel descended to the ground, Preview appeared. Darkness left the small town and freed X-Men's Blackbird. The airplane was searching for the place to touch down. Wounds on the body of Megan and Mark healed up. Jessica came up to Sleepwalker who was still lying in a pile of rubble. She extended her hand to him.

"Do you want to see the light?"

"Not... never... I will come back, when I regain forces and you plunge into a depression. I will be waiting for the opportune moment to take you. We will see each other again... I will exist as long as you live and you have your power."

"Yes... that's true. I can have only one wish... so that the world changes in such a way that I won't have my powers... I want to become... weakly powered mutant having mental abilities..."

"No! If you do it then again you will be suffering, then again you will break down..."

"Perhaps... but I have my Hope now... my hope".

"No!" The man screamed. When Preview closed her eyes, Sleepwalker started disappearing, his body was ripped to shreds. Jessica exhausted from power use fell down on desert sand. The entire neighborhood was flooded with a dazzle. When everyone was able to look freely, they immediately ran to the girl lying on the grass. Hope reached her first. She put her head on her own knees.

"Jessie! Jessie! Can you hear me?" She asked. Preview opened her eyes. A light was dazzling her. "Hope... everyone... how good to see you all... Megan, stretch your wings... light is striking me.." In the distance, the Blackbird touched down and the X-Men emerged from it. Sarah was standing in the distance, kind of being afraid to approach the Paragons group. Jessica looked at her.

"Sarah... come here... don't stand in an out-of-the-way place." She said. Girl hearing it quickly came to the others. She sat down by Jessica. X-Men quickly came closer to their younger friends.

A few days passed. For Preview, they were very tiring because she had to tell Emma and Shan about what had happened to her and experience tens of tests in Doc McCoy's laboratory. These days she thought a lot about herself, Hope and what the girl felt for her. She thought also about her mother. In the end, she decided to leave the institute and go home to confront her past as well as to think in a solitude about her future, especially of the one associated with Hope. She was standing by the gate of the institute by the car, which she "inherited" after Sleepwalker. She had her black trousers and the T-shirt on. She was looking at clouds moving all over the sky. Paragons together with Shan and Sarah came to say goodbye to her.

"Jessica, must you really go? Mark asked.

"I want to think about everything".

"I hope that you'll come back quickly." Megan announced.

"I'll try to return as soon as I can. Thanks for everything you recently did for me".

"You already said it so many times, don't repeat yourself". Ben replied.

"And perhaps you have something to say, Nick?" He added.

"Yes, I'm sorry Jessica... for a few recent months." WolfCub said.

"Accepted." Preview answered and smiled lightly. She came up to Sarah. She hugged her.

"We have so much to say to each other..." Network whispered.

"I must leave. But after all I'm not dying... I'll be back in a few weeks and then we'll have a lot of time for ourselves."

"Are you sure that you want to go alone? I want to see mum..."

"Sorry... I want to be alone for some time. I must think over a lot. But we'll also go together some time. I promise". Girls cuddled once again.

"I'll already go, or else I'll be moved to tears," Sarah left the sister.

"Let us walk now. Let us leave them alone," She said to Paragons.

"Take care of yourself and remember that you can always call us". Shan announced taking her group. Hope and Jessica stayed alone. They watched each other without any words.

"Ah... Jessie... you're escaping from me again. Don't you remember that you promised me to show me the real stars?" Hope spoke first.

"If I promised, this means that we'll see them together. At the moment I must leave. I'll come back to you, I promise."

"And what with my... with feelings... whether you accept..."

"It's one of the reasons I want to leave. I must to think it all over and give you an answer."

Jessica announced avoiding the unequivocal answer.

"I'll be waiting for you". Hope replied. She came up to her friend. She touched her shoulders and she kissed her on the cheek.

"Godspeed". Jessie got in the car and drove away from the gate.

**Epilogue 1 **

_I'll tell you what I've done_

_I'll tell you what I'll do_

_Been driving all night just to get close to you_

Hope got up very early in the morning. A semi-darkness prevailed behind windows but morning birds started their usual everyday concert. The girl sat down on the bed. She looked sadly at the empty bed of her room-mate. She came up to the desk. Three photographs in frames were staying on it: Jessica with Michelle, Jessica and Hope and Paragons group with Joe's family. Trance smiled to herself. In the same moment, she heard knocking to the window. She ran up to it, opened it widely and looked out outside. Morning air refreshed her. Jessica was standing under her window. She smiled to her.

"Can I come in?" She asked.

"Ah... you surprised me, I didn't know what to say. Damn, you arrived... I didn't expect it so soon. Will you enter this way?"

"Sure, there are low ground floors here". Jessie came into the room from the window. Hope helped her. Black-haired girl touched her hand.

"Get dressed and pack your suitcase". She ordered.

"What?" Hope was surprised.

"I'm taking you on a journey. I promised you to show you real stars".

"So suddenly... I'm not prepared for it. And what will Emma Frost say?"

"I called Shan. She'll explain her everything. We can go". Hope went into the bathroom and get dressed. Jessica found her knapsack and helped her to pack things.

"Jessie? Did you think about me... did you decide something?"

"Don't think about it now. We're going on a trip, everything will become clear soon".

"I'll be ready in a minute". Hope shouted joyfully.

_Sleeping in my car - I will possess you_

_Sleeping in my car - certainly bless you_

_Laying in the back seat of my car making up._

Hope and Jessica ran out of the hall of residence. Both girls took with themselves only most needed things. Black-haired mutant opened car's door asking her friend to come in. When they both were inside, Jessica turned on the radio.

"Hope... I'll be for you what Michelle was for me. I talked with mum about you, she wanted to meet with you".

"I'd like to get to know her, are we going?"

"Of course". Girls set off on their own travel.

_Sleeping in my car - I will undress you_

_Sleeping in my car - I will caress you_

_Staying in the back seat of my car making love, oh yeah! _

THE END


End file.
